Towards the development of Technology-based Educational Patterns

From left: Shyam Shrestha (Chairperson of Secondary level Thematic Committee in High Level Education Commission), Prof. Dr. Bhoj Raj Aryal (Professor at Central Department of Management), Baudha Raj Niraula (Head of Education Department from Shankharapur Municipality), Jitram Lama (President of NGO Federation of Nepal)

A Conference on Digital Math Education was organized by 'Kids of Kathmandu' and 'e-Education' with the support of JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) on 13th and 14th of June, 2019. This two-day event comprised of a panel discussion and socialization on the first day, and for the second day, a participative workshop was conducted.

The event raised crucial concerns regarding the education environment and changes in education patterns in response to technological environment. The government realizes the importance of technological advancements in the present world and its importance, and has been developing various schemes and models to integrate the use of technology in classroom lectures; for example, by providing various basic and proficient ICT courses. Introducing change in the educational environment needs time and acceptance, so it is not the reluctance of the government but the persistence of teachers on using the same old techniques. There is a lack of awareness about the importance and uses of ICT in education and everyday job which should be resolved, and the sooner it is done, the better.

But availability still remains a big question in most rural places; it is predominantly non-existent where absence of electricity poses as a barrier to ICT access. There are cases where misuse (and even absence of any use) has been witnessed. For these cases where abundant availability has failed to deliver desired results, changes shall be brought in the scheme, and the teachers who come with no preparation and lack any training on integrating ICT facility in lectures and with little to no motivation, need to create a creative engaging technique and give prior importance to student engagement. Some arguments suggest that the lack of rural school teachers is what drives the deterioration of quality education. Others object that it is not the lack of teachers but a lack of management. A solution for this issue demands availability of qualified teachers, removal of inexperienced teachers and ICT training to motivated teachers.

There are 3 fundamental factors that drives an effective incorporation of ICT in schools: modern technology, access to technology and learning attitude in teachers. Quite often professionals are well adjusted about the results, but minimum urgency is given to understanding the causes behind them. In many instances there has been questions concerning the gap between public and private schools. One major reason creating this gap is when the teachers pay less attention to the psychology of students and how their teaching methodology affects the attention span of their students.

The second day engaged all the participants in a participatory workshop schedule where the groups were assigned with respective topics and worked out possible solutions. The topic during the day discussed about utilizing, implementing and maximizing the use of video lectures in class, issues and its solutions to expand the reach of video lectures where most needed, and how to use ICT facility. The event successfully delivered rigorous insights from our panelists and all the participants during the workshop, which will further assist in improving the methodology of the entire process.

Kids of Kathmandu is a non-profit organization working for the betterment of marginalized and disadvantaged group of children.