http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/second-thoughts-on-online-education/?hpw

“But what we are saying is that there’s no free lunch” in the drive to online education, he said.

India is a nation of poor – and education is degrading. And in such a nation, technology isn’t multiplicative – it is at best a distraction. This ‘mass education’ initiative is great, but it is out of focus, as the Jester has so vehemently advocated.

Let’s analyse the role of ICT in education.

Will it work? – Who are being empowered? Not the poor for sure – what we teach them in science classes is not self-discovery but rote learning. We don’t have ICT labs in urban schools, what to talk of rural schools! Rural schools barely manage with a teacher. So we make do with a few classes per month. After all, no poor kid is going to be a rocket scientist! The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan is but a joke playing for way too long.

Next comes the ‘need’. Why would a rural kid learn to mug up the lessons on CDs, projectors and online modules at home when he knows that in that ’spare’ time he can work on his farm/part-time work – chipping in his contribution to the family income. After all, he is not going to be a rocket scientist! (duplicated)

So the basic problem is not ‘technology’ but the human intent, as the Jester correctly maintains.

When children in rural areas do not even have timely access to books and classes, then trying to put CDs and projectors into the scene is too immature an effort. The uphill task of bringing them to schools is what demands attention, rather than reaching out through ICT. As preached everywhere but practiced rarely, ‘technology is only a means’.

We need to increase this school attendance – an example being the ‘Mid-day meal scheme’ in India. This single scheme has enhanced the numbers by such folds as even an ICT revolution cannot achieve. We have to understand the real needs of the kids. They need food, a better source of income and home environment so that they can ’study’ instead of ‘work’. Only when such needs are taken care of that we can proceed with polishing them at par with international standards and global progress.

We need to encourage kids to learn by bringing them closer to books (and in time, to ICT), instead of taking technology to them and telling them to learn. Learning happens slowly and on a strong foundation. The need of the hour is not to teach kids elementary mathematics on an online module but how to apply it when working as an accountant. And I guess, ICT cannot help in this case!

“Volunteer teaching” is also a new effort in the direction but with few takers — mostly corporate people working up to embellish their CVs with social work and CSR. And it will take many more ‘Teach for India’ to put the horse before the cart. This ‘education for all’ is but nonsense when we cannot ‘pay according to merit’. In India, teaching is the lowest-paid, mediocre job. Where most work is needed, why do we do away with salaries? Why do we encourage volunteerism? Those teachers have families just as we do. Then, why this ‘charity’? Just try paying the teachers well (full-time or volunteers), and see the difference. When development is your goal, start with the top of the pyramid — pyramid of real workers — and the trickle-down effect is inevitable. Every pro-development worker in the educational sphere will love to be a committed teacher! And then we WILL have better students – ICT or no ICT.

The two worlds confront exactly the same broad problems –

(1). Given the best material (books, lectures, videos, etc) to convey knowledge, how do we scale-up? Technology could help in solving this problem, assuming significant meaningful reach.

(2). Only a small population is usually interested in learning – for reasons that by all means of confession are manifestations of (un)modern pedagogy – biased teachers encouraging students to become like someone (for e.g. Gates), student personalities, cut-throat kindergarten competition in asian countries, and some psychological factors. Nobody is interested in finding out how to make it interesting for *a* kid (the “group” nature of lectures/classes, and the student/teacher ratio too).

Teach for X like efforts are trying to address (1) by replacing a distributed system of machines by a mixture of technology and humans heavier in composition in humans who are passionate about not letting (2) happen. But there is only so much a small number can do. Manufacturing more teachers by teaching them how to teach is again prone to 1 & 2 at a smaller scale. Such efforts are also usually seen as secondary help by school authorities that are already paying their staff salaires to “teach”.

There definitely could be more ways to approach the issue, after an agreement on what the issue really is at a wider level happens and there is no fear of undoing things. Jackhammers, ones that come under $35, to start with.