“…….

Every society that values social justice and is anxious to improve the lot of the
common man and cultivate all available talent must ensure progressive equality of
opportunity to all sections of the population. This is the only guarantee for the
building up of an egalitarian and human society in which the exploitation of the weak
will be minimized”.

The Education Commission, GOI 1966.108)

THE CONCEPT OF NET SCHOOL

Introduction
1. This paper borrows its concept from Mr Sugata Mitra’s experiments of Hole in
the Wall, wherein a computer was installed in a wall in the slum of Delhi and children
given free access to it, the children showed remarkable ability to organise
themselves and fathom the means to use the computer despite not having
elementary knowledge of English, the experiment was replicated in different parts of
the country, with astounding success. The experiment underlines the fact that
children, left to themselves without adult supervision can still teach themselves. It
also underlines the enormous importance of Internet as medium for imparting
education.

Aim
2. The aim of the paper is to identify the feasibility of using the Internet to provide
structured education in schools wherein the teacher is replaced by the net.

Present Day System

3. India today is the fastest growing nation in terms of population, currently
hovering around 2% the population growth is likely to be sustained till 2025, after
which we are likely to see the population growth rate, slow down to just under 1.5%.
The high growth coupled with India’s impressive economic growth has unleashed a
tremendous urge in the general populace to get their children educated, this has
seen a rush for for private schools even in villages in the fervent hope of getting a
better education as the Government run schools are seen to be lacking in quality.

4. While the stated policy of the government is well known including the Right to
Education Act of 2009, its implementation is going to be a herculean task. The
government lays emphasis on primary education up to the age of fourteen. It has
also banned child labour to ensure that children are imparted education up to the
age of fourteen. The situation at the moment appears not too encouraging and looks
presently like an uphill task, given the economic and social conditions. Today the
government runs 80 per cent of the primary schools in the country and the balance
are run by the private sector. The government run schools have extremely poor
infrastructure and other facilities due to shortage of resources it has become very
difficult for the government schools to attract good teachers and more often than not
are understaffed with high teacher pupil ratio and rampant absenteeism of both staff
and pupils is a norm rather than an exception. While the schools run by private
players are only marginally better with quality of eduction being imparted not being
uniform, they are perceived to be better than Government School. Hence the parents
are willing to pay a premium to enroll their children, in private schools, hoping that
their children will get a better education which may not be always the case.

Brief History of Education in India

5. Ancient India followed the Gurukul system which was the most preferred method
of education but mainly restricted to nobility. The education in these gurukuls was as
per the task the individual was to perform in the society, the lowest class was
generally deprived of any form of education. Apart from the Gurukul system India
also had a well trenched higher education system and centres of higher education
notably at Takshila and Nalanda, similar universities existed at other urban centres.
By the time the Islamic Scholar visited India the country had a refined education
system in place. With the arrival of Britishers and their requirement of huge Army of
clerks to assist the running of the administrative machinery of the country and the
education system for the first time was slotted as Primary and Secondary Education.
The system continues till date.
6. Post independence the first education minister Maulana Azad wanted a strong
educational system with central control over it to ensure uniformity however the
difference in cultural and linguistic perceptions prevented that and education was
included in the concurrent list. There after the progress in education was mixed with
higher education getting higher priority which led to establishment of IITs, Indian
Institute of Science, Regional Engineering Colleges and Universities at state level.
However this paper will focus only on Primary Education.

7. The central government of India formulated the National Policy on Education

(NPE) in 1986 and also reinforced the Programme of Action (POA) in 1986. The
government initiated several measures the launching of DPEP (District Primary
Education Programme) and SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, India's initiative for
Education for All) and setting up of Navodaya Vidyalaya and other selective schools
in every district, advances in female education, inter-disciplinary research and
establishment of open universities. India's NPE also contains the National System of
Education, which ensures some uniformity while taking into account regional
education needs. The NPE also stresses on higher spending on education,
envisaging a budget of more than 6% of the Gross Domestic Product While the need
for wider reform in the primary and secondary sectors is recognized as an issue, the
emphasis is also on the development of science and technology and education
infrastructure.

Lacunae of Present Education System

8. The present system of education relies heavily on the government to provide

education especially in rural areas and semi urban areas, in urban areas there is a
sizable presence of private players however they are not able to cater for the
complete demand because of lack of resources and the fees charged by them
makes it unaffordable for a large chunk of populace. Since the government is the
dominant source of education provider there are glaring loopholes in the education
system which are required to be rectified in order to ensure a high quality of
education which is essential for the progress of the nation. Let us see some of the ills
that ail Indian Education System.
 (a) Although the enrollment Although enrolment in primary education has
increased, it is estimated that at least 35 million, and possibly as many as 60
million, children aged 6–14 years are not in school.1

(b) Existence of severe gender, regional and caste disparities in the rural
areas further compounds the problem.1

(c) A high rate of school dropout especially after class ten.

(d) Woefully inadequate infrastructure at places multiple classes have

been found to share the same class room.

(e) Finally the biggest determinant of the quality of the education being
imparted is the teacher or the human resource itself, with the exponential
growth in the number of school going children finding the right quality teachers
is going to be a herculean task. The quality of teachers is highly uneven and
availability of quality teaching staff is very less.

(f) The training of teaching staff is often done in an arbitrary manner, with
no standardisation of training procedures, the problem gets further
compounded.

(g) Government schools are also notorious for high percentage of teachers
being absent from duty.

(h) In addition rampant poverty and children being seen as major bread
winner for the family, families below the poverty level have no incentive to
send their children to schools, the government mid day meal scheme is an
earnest effort in this direction, to provide an incentive to the families to send
their children to schools. While the scheme has proved to be a major success
in southern states it’s implementation in rest of the country has been uneven
and complaints about siphoning of food grain meant for the scheme has been
making news in addition to the poor and substandard quality of meal being
served has been making news.

1
Chatham House Report of 2005 on Challenges for India’s Education System
 (i) The books prescribed have been found to be full of mistakes indicating
a clear lackadaisical attitude on part of the authorities.

9. According to the India Together reporter Summiya Yasmeen:

The Central and state governments are hard put to mobilise 4 per cent of GDP for
education. (...) With 59 million children out-of-school and another 90 million in school
learning very little, the common school system is not a utopian ideal dug out from the
archives of the Kothari Commission, but an imperative that will decide India’s place
in the comity of nations2.

10. Having seen the state of primary education in the country it is generally felt
that run of the mill solutions are not likely to achieve anything substantial due to
combination of factors like rampant corruption, nepotism and the gigantic lethargy of
the bureaucratic machinery both at the centre and state level. The use of IT is likely
to prove to be a game changer in enabling the country to provide quality and relevant
education to all overcoming the primary challenge of producing and deploying large
number qualified teachers in far flung rural areas. Chris Anderson says the rise of
web video is driving a worldwide phenomenon he calls Crowd Accelerated
Innovation – a self-fuelling cycle of learning that could be as significant as the
print3.

11. Let us briefly examine Mr Sugata Mitra’s concept of getting the children to
educate themselves in a process which is participative and without adult supervision,
as part of the experiment a computer was installed at different locations in the
country in areas like slums and children allowed to explore the computer, certain
common features of the experiment across the country were:-

(a) The children had never seen a computer before.

(b) The children had no knowledge of English.

(c) No preliminary guidance of computer operation was given to the

children.

2
http://www.indiatogether.org/2004/jul/edu-kothari.htm (accessed 15.09.04).
3
TED TALKS WWW. TED.COM
 (d) Children learned about the computer and internet purely by hit and trial
method.

(e) Yet at the end of the trial period the children had taught themselves the
nuances of the computer and the internet.

12. The experiment above brings forth the enormous importance of the web in
providing quality education to the primary children in far flung regions of the country
without compromising on the quality of education being imparted, elaborate
infrastructure is also not required only requirement which is visualised is computers,
data walls and high speed internet. We shall discuss the exact requirement of IT
hardware later as we develop the idea further. However it would be pertinent to
mention here that IT and web seem to be the only way out of the present mess that
the primary education sector finds itself in, if the goal of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan the
national programme launched in 2001 to achieve universal primary education by
2007 and universal elementary education by 2010 is to make significant headway.

13. When computers were introduced into education in 1960, its potential as a
tool for learning was immediately evident, though initially lack of content was the
primary inhibitor to the widespread use of computers as a tool for education along
with the prohibitive cost of a computer then ensured that it remained an elitist tool
only. Subsequently the evolution of a computer from a machine which was just
processing information technology to one that supported communication further
enhanced the potential to educate. The term computer technology has been now
replaced by Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Today the wide
spread availability of high speed internet will further give a boost to education
through the resources available on the net. Let us see what makes us so optimistic
about using the web and ICT for education in Primary schools:-

(a) Initiatives such as a One Laptop per Child from MIT, there is a real
possibility of easy access to hardware, even in a resource starved country like
India.

(b) Widespread availability of internet.

(c) Quality educational content available on the net and capability to

develop, tailor-made content where required.
 (d) Availability of content in local language also.

(e) A pool of qualified instructors would be identified and be made

available across the length and breadth of the country through the web.

14. The teacher who traditionally was required to be present in the class to enable
the learning process would be replaced with guides who would have indepth
knowledge of computers and projection system and net connectivity, there would be
no requirement that these guides have knowledge of the subject that is being taught
in the class their role would be merely to ensure attendance and maintenance of
discipline. These schools would follow the same curriculum that has been prescribed
by the central/ state Boards.

15. The requirement of infrastructure/ software for each classroom for such a
process would be as follows:-

(a) Projection System and good sound system.

(b) Dedicated internet connectivity.

(c) Computers at the scale of one per six students, the emphasis is on
group learning, where the learning process is encouraged to be participative.

(d) Identification of suitable websites/ content on CDs for the lesson that
are to be conducted on daily basis.

(e) In addition to the content available on the internet, the following

software is available with C DAC which may be required to be modified to be
adapted for primary education:-

(i) Vasistha - An Instruction Delivery Framework for Online

Learning.

(ii) Veda Online Testing System.

(iii) Sandesh - Query Responding Simplified.

(iv) Chaatra - A Student Monitoring and Learner Modelling

System
 (v) Acharya - Intelligent Tutoring System for SQL which can be
modified for other subjects.

16. In addition to C DAC a large number of private players are available who are
presently engaged in generating educational content they also can be roped in to
generate customised content for primary school children. Today enough content is
available on the net too. It will have to be identified and vetted to ensure
standardisation.

17. With the ever-increasing popularity and accessibility of the Internet, it is only
natural that the educational community makes use of this tremendous resource. Use
of the Internet and Web are leading to significant changes in educational models.
Effective exploitation of these changes requires adequate attention to understanding
the technology, the educational processes and issues, student’s characteristics, etc.
As this use of Internet is increasing, a traditional classroom has shifted to E-
Learning. While advancements in communication tools were easily adapted to
learning methods, it was the introduction of the personal computer and the
development of the Internet that will be used to create the most radical
transformation in primary education. Learning by computer can be as easy as
communicating with your professor and fellow classmates via email, student utilizing
an interactive CD-ROM. Thus, Net School can be defined as an approach to
facilitate and enhance learning by means of personal computers, CD-ROMs, and the
Internet. It may be as simple as that teachers may simply post their material on
Internet, students can read it online or can download it for further access. Since
student will be in a classroom with a guide and classmates, he/ she will need to be
initially trained to be independent of learning from a teacher as the web content will
replace the teacher and guide present in the room will ensure discipline and attention
of students in the classroom while the lesson is being taught. The school will provide
the students with a syllabus, course documents, and required readings. The
interaction between the teacher and the students will happen via e-mail, discussion
board, forums etc. Since the class meets in a physical space at a scheduled time,
the student’s teaching will still be structured. However each student will have to be
initially monitored to ensure that assigned reading and assignments are completed
on time according to the timeline on the syllabus. Subsequently the assignments
could be done and corrected online.
18. The use of web will result in the following:-
(a) Reduction in number of teachers required.
(b) High quality teaching material would be available for teaching, content
could be made available in local language also.
(c) Uniformity of teaching material and teaching standards across the
entire state.
(d) While lessons would be flashed on the screen/ whiteboard which would
replace the traditional black board, for the entire class, the subsequent work
would be done on the PC with group participation being encouraged.
(e) The content available on the web is far more interactive and creative
than the mundane teaching methods presently being used, this is likely to
stimulate interest and promote better understanding of concepts at primary
level.
(f) The wide spread use of computers is likely to ensure large number of
students who would be comfortable with the use of computers and could
subsequently pursue higher education through virtual classrooms.
(g) To suit the children of different economic backgrounds the schools
could have flexible timings, depending on the agriculture and other activities
as per the seasons.
(h) A panel of highly qualified teachers located anywhere in the country
could be employed for interactive sessions to enable clarification of doubts of
the students.
(i) To ensure students progress is satisfactory a system of online testing
can be implemented.
(k) The initial expenditure may be high but the subsequent expenditure
involved in payment of large number of poorly qualified teachers including
their pensions after retirement, can be done away with.

19. A pilot project initially could be started in a well established school by using
the infrastructure of the school to ascertain the feasibility of education through the
web, the educational content available on the U Tube will be utilised and additional
content to suit the curriculum can uploaded on the site, and progress of children
could be monitored to ensure evenness of the education being imparted, a panel of
qualified teachers could be made available for the children to interact by having a
video link and children could interact with them at specified times, thus clarifying any
doubts about subjects covered during the week. The guide who will be available
throughout will be assigned the responsibility of checking the copies of the students
till a suitable system of online homework and class work is put into place.

20. A number of features are available in virtual class rooms4 these are:-

(a) Direct Messaging. This can be used for chatting between the
presenter and students.

(b) Shared Whiteboard. Used to view presentations.

(c) Resource Sharing. Used for uploading of files by instructor,

which can subsequently be downloaded by the students.

(d) Polls. For obtaining a feedback from the students.

(e) Virtual Hands Up. For the instructor to know if the student has any
query.

21. These technologies have deliberately not been discussed here as the
education is proposed to be imparted by using existing content on the web to ensure
high quality of education for primary students, moreover these systems are
expensive and their effectiveness over the length and breadth of the country in small
villages is yet to be ascertained, also the use of these systems will require the
presence of instructor real time even if he is geographically separated, which defeats
the very purpose of using the web content i.e. to overcome the shortage of qualified
teachers. Also the concept of virtual classrooms is more attuned to students
pursuing higher education and not meant for primary children. While the idea itself is
very simple and the educational content available on the net especially U Tube and
its effectiveness is what has prompted the author of this paper to explore the idea of

4
Virtual Classroom by CDAC
using the web to impart primary education. However the idea is not without its
pitfalls, some of the constraints are:-

(a) Poor Internet Connectivity. The entire concept rests heavily on

the availability of a high speed internet connection. The availability of internet
connection is critical to the success of the concept.

(b) Power. Rural India goes without power for days together, at
places where there is no electricity there is a requirement of dedicated power
source like solar energy/ generator.

(c) Training of Guides to Operate IT Hardware. Training of

guides to operate the computers is critical to the success of the concept of
Net School. Feasibility of training womenfolk of the village to operate the
computers and subsequently employ them as guides should be explored, if
the same is successful, the success of the project is guaranteed as the
women of the village have a vested interest in ensuring children attendance
and functionality of equipment. The school could later be converted into an
adult education centre in the evening/ after school hours.

(d) Availability of Educational Software in Local Language. Content

in local language is essential to ensure that it is widely used and understood.

(e) Ruggedised Computers/ Hardware. Availability of

ruggedised hardware is essential as this will ensure longevity of the systems
and will be able to withstand the wear and tear of use by children who are not
trained to use the systems. Also it is essential that equipment serviceability is
ensured at all times, as no education can be imparted without these systems.

22. A system of Bhagidari is proposed to be introduced by roping in the

panchayat of the village to ensure success of the concept, there have been a
number of instances wherein panchayats have taken to task errant government
appointed teachers and ensured their punctuality, it is this aspiration of an average
villager to educate their children which will be crucial to successful implementation of
the concept.

Conclusion

23. Arthur C Clarke was of the opinion that wherever it is possible to replace a
human being by a machine it must be done so. The poor state of our Government
schools and shortage of qualified and dedicated teachers is forcing the planners to
look at alternative means, the web with its rich content of educational material can
suitably fill this gap and also ensure provision of high quality of education with
qualified teachers being available on the panel to address the issues at any
geographical region of the country. While telemedicine and online services support
has truly come of age, the use of web for widespread education is yet to be fully
exploited and it remains confined to elite schools, which is unfortunate. Due to the
fall in costs of internet connectivity and increase in internet speed and availability of
IT Hardware, including the project of provision of One Lap Top per Child, Indian
planners should factor in these developments while planning for primary education.
The central idea here is not to use very high technology gadgetry to replace the
teacher, but simple easily available resources to further the primary education in the
country, as expensive technology is likely to make the whole concept a non starter at
the incipient stage itself.

“Education is the manifestation of the perfection already in Man”

- Swami Vivekananda