View of IMPACT OF DIGITIZATION ON INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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ACCENT JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS ECOLOGY & ENGINEERING

Peer Reviewed and Refereed Journal ISSN: 2456-1037 IMPACT FACTOR: 7.98(INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL) Vol. 05, Special Issue 04,(ICMCSEH)June 2020 Available Online: www.ajeee.co.in/index.php/AJEEE

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IMPACT OF DIGITIZATION ON INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE 21^ST CENTURY Vandana Jain

Research Scholar (Education), SKD University, Hanumangarh Junction, Rajasthan Abstract: Innovation and technology have reformed each sector with vast changes in the few past decades. Today, Hon‟ble PM Narendra Modi‟s vision of „Digital India‟ has a profound effect on our lives. Every modern organization uses digital strategies to achieve its business objectives. Thus, in this age of digitization, it also becomes very necessary to revolutionize education sector to keep pace with the competitive world. Today, the advanced technologies used in education have transformed learning from an academic exercise to an engaging experience. This paper aims at analyzing the progression in education sector. It describes the age of 21st century in terms of educational advancement and how the 'old school' systems became the 'new school' systems that enhanced digital education.

Furthermore, it explores the issues and challenges for a teacher due to digitalized teaching- learning process and how his/her relevance is gradually losing ground in this era of e- learning.

Keywords: Digitization, Indian education system, Technology, Digital learning, E-learning.

1. INTRODUCTION

“Technology can become the 'wings' that will allow the educational world to fly farther and faster than ever before; if we will allow it.” - Jenny Arledge We are running into the 21st century where technology knows no limits. This is the phase of radical development where technology is taking over every nook and cranny of the world. Smart phones, laptops, and tablets are no more unfamiliar terms. During this phase the education system is growing for the betterment because this generation's students cannot be confined by the limits of simple learning; their curiosity is measureless and cannot be satisfied with educational systems that were designed earlier. If we kept on teaching our children the way we taught them yesterday, we would deprive them of their tomorrow. Our old educational system lacks the capability to stand a chance in the 21st century. We are in the era where unparalleled and unique ideas are unfolding in our education industry and creating the development that can‟t be corresponded by lagging behind in terms of technology. So, we are obligated to use digitization in our educational system. But its propagation has brought about disruptive changes with a potential to drastically modify the conventional landscape.

This has led to an apprehension that the relevance of the teacher would gradually diminish in the age of digital learning. There is much debate on whether a virtual teacher can actually replace or fill in for hundreds of others. Singh says: "If you are looking at technology replacing teachers, we are missing the point. Tech is a force multiplier that can increase the scope and impact of a teacher. However, Sameer Brahmachari, Director General of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR), says that technology has blurred the lines that separate teacher and student. "My experience with open source drug discovery has shown that groups of students who are monitored are the weakest, he says”

(Nivedita Jha & Veena Shenoy, 2016).

2. HISTORY OF INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

India, with more than 1.4 million schools and more than 230 million enrolments, is home to one of the largest and complex education system in the world. The historic education system is synonymous with the Gurukula System. There were gurus (teachers) and shishyas (students) who used to live together under one roof in Gurukula. The shishyas were expected to help the guru in all the daily chores as a part of one‟s learning. The Gurukula system focused on the practical aspects of life. The students were taught in the open classroom in the vicinity of nature. The child was taught everything from Sanskrit to the Holy Scriptures and from Mathematics to Metaphysics. All learning was closely connected to nature and to life. This ancient system of education in India continued for years until the modern education system came into picture.

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77 3. MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEM

The education system has come a long way - from gurukuls to classes under a tree to class rooms with black boards to white boards to projectors and now finally on computers and laptops with smart classes. The teachers, classrooms and even students have changed. With the passing time, the things which were a luxury in the past have formed the basic needs now. As the needs grew, the education had to grow. If the education did not evolve, then it would be difficult to fulfill the needs of today.

Modern day education uses a variety of technology, computers, projectors, internet, and many more. Diverse knowledge is being spread among the people. Today, the teachers and classrooms can be shut down if the child does not understand the topic or is not in a study mode. The teacher can be put on repeat mode or can be made stand still or speak fast or slow as the teachers now are Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and computers, laptops are classrooms. As of 2019, the number of internet users in India was 699 million, up from 40 million in the year of 2006. And the number tends to rise to 730 million by the year of 2020. This is the change in advancement of education system (mumbai-ix.net).

4. RESTRUCTURING EDUCATION IN INDIA THROUGH DIGITIZATION

“With the advent of technology and its surging acceptability in society at large, there is a huge scope to take education to the remotest part of the country, for enhancing awareness and improving understanding. But, the education field in India is mired in tradition, ideology and incumbent interests,” writes Akash Tomer of Elets News Network (ENN). “The use of technology coupled with bold decisions can help India leapfrog into inclusive growth and improve the quality of health and education,” says Bill Gates. The statement by the founder of one of the world‟s largest technology companies indicates that the use of technology may help India to get placed among top countries of the world in terms of education. (digitallearning.eletsonline.com)

While technology-enabled initiatives or platforms in line with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) use advanced technologies, the Government also lays emphasis on enhancing the use of tools such as virtual lab, virtual reality (VR)-enabled classrooms or curated online content for both students and teachers. Today, India‟s education sector is witnessing the increased use of technology such as Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality in day-to-day practices related to education sector.

5. DIGITAL INITIATIVES BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT 5.1 Diksha

It was launched by the Union Ministry of Human Resource and Development (HRD) with a vision to take students beyond their lessons by the digitization of school syllabus. This portal equips the teachers, students and parents across the nation with engaging learning material using advanced digital technology.

5.2 Swayam

SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds) aims to achieve the three basic principles of education policy i.e. access, equity and quality. It facilitates the

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best teaching learning resources to all including the most disadvantaged, in the form of video lectures, downloadable and printable reading material, self-assessment tests and an online discussion forum.

5.3 Swayam Prabha

The SWAYAM PRABHA, a group of 32 DTH channels, offers MOOCs and is devoted to telecast high-quality learning programmes on 24X7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. On a daily basis, there is new content for at least 4 hours and that too is repeated 5 more times in a day, so that the students can choose the time as per their own convenience.

5.4 Virtual Labs

This project aims to provide remote access to labs in various disciplines of Science and Engineering, and to share costly equipments and resources, which are otherwise available to limited number of students only due to time constraints and geographical distance. It provides a complete learning management system in which the students as well as research scholars can avail various tools for learning, including additional web-resources, video- lectures, animated demonstrations and self evaluation.

5.5 A-View

A-VIEW is a multimedia e-learning platform which addresses the most crucial issue of higher education in India i.e. the shortage of highly qualified teachers. It provides such an e-learning experience that is almost similar to a real classroom experience.

5.6 E-Acharya

It is an integrated e-content portal that has been developed in various disciplines like Science, Arts, Engineering, Social Sciences etc. It facilitates a learner to easily access the desired material including audio/video learning material, textual material, multimedia enriched materials etc. through a single interface.

6. DIGITAL PORTALS OR PLATFORMS FOR INDIAN CLASSROOMS 6.1 Google Classroom

It‟s a free web service by Google. It aims to simplify the distribution, creation and assessment in a paperless manner. It streamlines the former tiresome process of sharing data between teachers and students. It combines Google Drive; Google Docs, Sheets and Slides; Gmail and Google Calendar for assignment creation and distribution, for writing, for communication, and for scheduling respectively.

6.2 Educomp Smartclass or CTS

Educomp smartclass is a pioneering industry in education sector that has brought technology into the classrooms, with digital modules in the form of 2D and 3D animations, graphics, audio and video. Abstract and difficult concepts in every subject can be easily accessed and projected by a teacher in the classroom, thereby awakening the young minds with a novel and interesting way of understanding.

To make smartclass a truly 21st century teaching-learning, Educomp Smartclass executed the most comprehensive re-engineering of its kind, and re-christened the system as Smartclass CTS (Class Transformation System).

6.3 Brainly

Brainly operates a group of social learning networks for students, parents and educators.

As a teacher-approved online learning resource, it helps to share and explore knowledge in a collaborative manner.

6.4 The new phase of learning has begun and involves various advanced techniques like:

 Online courses: Want to learn a new language or maybe to get trained in some specific course, but have no time to cover the distance? Online courses are developed by experts who have unmatched proficiency in their specific field and can give you the experience of real-time learning by designing their own online course.

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 Online exams; Digitization gave way to the online exam, making the examination process convenient for both teachers and students.

 Digital textbooks; Also prevalent with other names like e-textbooks and e-texts, digital textbooks provide an interactive interface in which the students have access to multimedia content such as videos, interactive presentations, and hyperlinks.

 Animation: This is a captivating approach in which students learn in a better manner. By offering a visual representation of the topic, students grasp the concept in a more understandable manner. Even the toughest topics can be presented in a simplified way with the help of animation.

7. ACCUMULATION OF STUDENTS ON THE SAME PLATFORM

With students coming in from various regions, schools and colleges are finding ways to develop an integrated solution to meet the educational needs of all students. By converting the whole of the educational system to digitization, the use of various techniques like online courses, online exams, digital textbooks, quizzes, and e-notes are improving the quality of education for the students.

7.1 Online Resources: Connecting Students With Their Educators

With a high increase in the student population in recent times, pedagogy is being compromised. Because of that, online resources are being developed in a way that makes them always available to teachers to educate the masses. Which, in turn, improves the quality of education and increases the number of literate students.

7.2 Internet: Making Digitization Possible

After the United States and China, India has been rated as the third largest internet consumer. The core existence of online education platforms is being possible with the internet. Most schools and colleges in India make use of the internet and they basically use it for conducting online exams and quizzes.

7.3 Administrative Activities: An Integral Part of the Education Industry

With digital systems being prevalent in education we are experiencing different levels of ease in online education, but the administrative part is not off the table. Keeping the records of students and maintaining their attendance and roll number is a big headache, that too when the students are outnumbering the administrative heads. So colleges and schools are adopting more hassle-free computerized methods and avoiding the old manual methods of maintaining the records.

8. CONCLUSION

Digitization has no doubt changed our education system, but we cannot say that it has diminished the value of our old time classroom learning. Neither do we want something so priceless to turn into dust. The best part about the digitization of education in the 21st century is that it is combined with the aspects of both; classroom learning and online learning methods. Walking hand in hand both act as a support system to each other, which gives a stronghold to our modern students. Digitization in education has also proved to be the right method for saving resources. Online examination platforms have restricted the frivolous usage of paper, directly confining the cutting down of trees. This way the digitization of education industry in the 21st century proves to be a boon to our society.

REFERENCES

1. Jha, Nivedita & Shenoy, Veena. (2016). Digitization of Indian Education Process: A Hope or Hype. IOSR Journal of Business and Management. 18. 131-139. 10.9790/487X-181003131139.

2. https://www.konnectogrow.com/digitization-of-education/

3. https://www.mumbai-ix.net/blog/indian-internet-penetration

4. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/digitisation-education-1045356-2017- 09-18

5. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03054985.2018.1500357

6. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309268032_Digitization_of_Indian_Education_Process_A_Hop e_or_Hype

7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328511962_Digitalization_and_Education_System_A_Survey 8. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/326631