‘The digital revolution holds immeasurable potential but, just as warnings have been voiced for how it should be regulated in society, similar attention must be paid to the way it is used in education. Its use must be for enhanced learning experiences and for the well-being of students and teachers, not to their detriment. Keep the needs of the learner first and support teachers. Online connections are no substitute for human interaction’
- Audrey Azoulay
UNESCO Director-General
Information & Communication Technology (ICT) adoption and deployment has provide competitive advantages to organizations in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex & ambiguous (VUCA) world. ICT tools are great enablers, expeditors, and levelers of systems and processes in every organization, irrespective of sector or vertical. Higher and school education is no exception. In fact, during the Covid-19 pandemic, unlike various sectors like logistics, travel & hospitality, which were completely devastated, education escaped unscathed in the meltdown largely due to the wide mobile and broadband footprint and penetration all across. The adoption of digital technology has stemmed several advances in learning. Today, ChatGPT, blended learning, MOOCs, flipped classrooms, and podcasts, are now common buzzwords in the academic community. The number of students in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) reached 220 million in 2021. Wikipedia had 244 million page views per day in 2021.
The need for Technology-enhanced learning is further reinforced in context of India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and the national goals towards the attainment of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Chapters 23 and 24 of NEP2020 policy document are devoted towards technology and digital education. Technology can be a game changer for disadvantaged groups and underserved communities with interventions such as assistive technologies, virtual labs, smart boards, online platforms, and e-content in scheduled Indian languages being some the examples. Towards, transformation of education system in India, NEP2020 broadly advocates the adoption of technology in four areas namely:
As per the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring (GEM) 2023 report, the accomplishment of SDG 4 (Quality Education for all) is intrinsically linked to technology. Technology appears in six out of the ten targets in the fourth Sustainable Development goal on education. Technology affects education through five distinct channels, as follows:
Technology can enhance education in terms of providing access, equity and inclusion; quality; advancement; and system management. However, the GEM 2023 report also warns us of global inequalities in terms of access to cutting-edge technology in backward and emerging economies that need to be addressed as well.
It is high time that educators put the needs of the learner above all and technology is key towards learner-centric education. The teacher also has to evolve into a facilitator of learning rather than the traditional deliverer of the content. Traditional teaching methodology and pedagogy coupled with digital learning tools, which could be either synchronous or asynchronous, would render education as more student-centric as also improve the issues of concern such as access, equity, inclusion, diversity and quality. University Grant Commission (UGC) has already permitted top ranked universities to offer online programs and expanded the scope of the Open University. For regular programs, UGC has also permitted up to 40% credit that can be earned through online courses subject to the norms and approval of the university where the student is studying.
ICT Initiatives of Government of India
To promote technology-enhanced learning, the Ministry of Education of Government of India has promoted several technology-based initiatives in the following pillars:
Audio/Video
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SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active-learning for Young Aspiring Minds) & NPTEL: 14700 courses with 4.7 crore enrolment and 37 lakh certificates issues. Courses are free but certifications have a nominal charge. These curated courses have Video lectures, assessment, course material and other tools and there is a provision for credit transfer.
Digital Content
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One Nation One subscription: ? 6,000 crore has been allocated for One Nation One Subscription for 3 calendar years, 2025, 2026 and 2027. 30 major international journal publisher are on board and 3,000 e-journals published by these publishers will now be accessible to more than 6,300 government Higher Education Institutions.?
Teaching-Learning Process & Pedagogy
Governance & Regulation
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Academic Bank of Credits (ABC): A digital repository of credits earned by students throughout his or her educational journey. 31.33 Crore students have registered at the portal from 2200+ universities and higher educational institutions. This will facilitate mobility, credit transfer and multiple entry-exit options as well as provision for factoring online credits.
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Samarth – open source ERP portal and digital framework for planning, management, delivery, and monitoring of services for students, staff, and other stakeholders.
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One Nation One Data portal: A portal in development wherein the higher educational institutions will submit their data to a single portal and this will be used by various statutory, regulatory, accreditation and ranking agencies.
Grassroots Innovation
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10,000+ Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) operationalized in 722 districts across 35 states in India benefiting 1.1. Crore school children all over India. ATL is equipped with cutting-edge equipment like robotics kits, sensors, IoT, 3D printer, miniaturized electronics, space technology, drone technology and other tools for tinkering.
The Gen_AI Effect
2023 will perhaps go down as the year of ChatGPT. Generative AI (Gen_AI) models led by ChatGPT and including Microsoft Co-pilot, Google Palm & Bard, Amazon Hugging-face and the like, using Large Language Models (LLM) pervaded all aspects of our lives. Any type of multimodal and multimedia can be mined for creating new knowledge as also summarization, Q&A, classification or out-of-the-box tasks. However, there is always the risk of inaccuracies and falsehoods being propagated. These are further complicated by bias and copyright violations due to this technology. However, disruptions have happened in every industry so as to speak because of this Gen_AI wave, be it education, transport, logistics, health and government. And we have only scratched the surface…
Today governments are clamoring towards regulation of AI. There is a need for Ethical AI, Responsible AI, Sustainable AI, Trust-worthy AI, human-centric AI and in the larger context….AI for Good. Fortunately, there is a road map defined in Bletchley Declaration, a global agreement by national governments towards regulation and human oversight of AI. It is expected that frameworks to regulate AI and classification and categorization of potential risks like Deep fakes will follow in due course.
In terms of Gen_AI adoption, the potential benefits could include:
In terms of applications, the following are some Gen_AI use-cases for teachers:
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Generate content such as assignments, quiz, case study, problems, or writing scenarios for complimenting the teaching-learning process
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Write course plans, lesson plans, learning objectives, syllabi statements, and/or course policies
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Enable students to research topics & areas, iterate on text to improve written work, program, design, create code, art, music, & much more.
There is no doubt a flip side, with academic dishonesty on the rise due to this trend. It is very crucial that teachers need to discourage students from using generative AI to complete assignments at the expense of learning critical skills that will affect their success in their careers in the future work place. Adequate checks and balance as also plagiarism controls are needed with respect to AI-generated content in assignments, software programs and other submissions by students.
AI for good is the need of the hour in the context of higher education.
About the Author
Dr. Prashant R. Nair, Head, Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore, has over twenty-four years of academic and administrative experience. He has taught in academic programs in the USA and Europe at University of California, San Diego; Sofia University, Bulgaria and University of Trento, Italy as an Erasmus fellow. He has written 6 books, 2 edited books, 1 book chapter and over 50 publications in reputed journals, books and conferences. He is active as a science writer & columnist. He has been serving as the Chairman/Vice-Chairman/Coordinator of Amrita University’s Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) since 2009. He has coordinated 3 cycles of NAAC accreditation, 2 cycles of NBA Accreditation, NIRF rankings, Swachh campus rankings and also served as UGC nodal officer for university with achievements such as A++ grade by NAAC, top private university in India in both national and international university rankings.?A very sought after speaker, by conservative estimates has addressed 150,000 students and trained 15,000+ faculty on technology, innovation, professional bodies and quality aspects of higher education in India, USA, Thailand, Russia, Italy, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nepal, Bhutan etc. Awards & recognitions won include multiple CSI best faculty and academic excellence awards, IEEE Education Society global chapter achievement award, IETE fellowship, Fulbright program reviewer, etc.