India has a long tradition of respect for scholarship. Two thousand years ago, there were universities like Taxila and Nalanda where students came for studies not only from India but from several foreign countries. Since then we had many ups and downs in our society. There were golden periods when science and arts flourished in the country including some dark patches. Discussions free and frank, when suppressed led to deterioration in the quality of education and research in India. Thus, while science bloomed in its modern form in the west during 16th to 19th centuries we had very little activity in this country. As a matter of fact we missed industrial revolution completely leading to obselescence of technology and finally to a long period of colonial rule. Much of higher education during this period was in the `Pathshalas' and `Madarsas' which had antiquated programmes of teaching. Higher education in the present form in India came with the establishment of three universities (Calcutta, Madras and Bombay) during the British rule in 1861. Another three were established (Dacca, Allahabad, Lahore) in 1885. With vast areas under their control, these universities had less number of affiliated colleges. Till 1947 we had around 29 universities in the then united India now divided into Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.
Since 1947, higher education witnessed a tremendous expansion. The total number of the universities or deemed universities is now around 240. There are around 1000 undergraduate colleges, polytechniques etc. There is a permanent shortage of teachers and infrastructural facilities. Hardly 10% of the universities, professional colleges and research laboratories subscribe to research journals. The number of subscribed journals is decreasing on yearly basis for almost all the institutions. Yet the total cost of these journals is around 3500 million rupees. This means that most of teachers are cut off from new information whereas their business is to provide information to the students. Naturally the quality of education has deteriorated over the years. At the same time higher education will keep on expanding due to ever increasing demand by aspiring young students. In my opinion this dual challenge of improving the quality of higher education and providing to a large numbers can be met by the opportunity offered by revolution in information technology. The pace of revolution in information technology is uncomparable than any other revolution in the history of the world. I happened to use all generations of computers. In 1956, as a graduate student at the university of Southern California, Los Angles, I used a monstrous system weighing several tons occupying a huge laboratory and emitting large amount of heat by thousands of tubes/valves in it. Ten years later, I used IBM 1620 which from today's standard can be compared to a toy. Now the storage and speed is doubled almost every eighteenth month while their prices and sizes are being reduced. Today it is no longer necessary that the students and teacher have 'to be in the same room or even in the same city. Through internet and multimedia a student can have access to the best of teachers and need not depend on the college library only. In future the librarian's job will not be to store books in the library but to provide access to information wherever it is available. The printed book gives only a static picture whereas one navigates through a book on CD-ROM in a number of ways and information can be presented in a dynamic mode. For our purpose its adoption will be most cost-effective.
Although there is a realization in the country about the importance of this technology but for many of us it seems day dreaming. This is particularly due to computer illiteracy amongst our educational administration and also due to lack of availability of working model connecting several colleges where it can be demonstrated in a practical manner. I must congratulate Professor Singhi and his colleagues for taking the steps in founding the Consortium of Information and Communication Technology. I am sure National and International Agencies will help to develop Information Technology for education and Research in this country.
Modern Information Technologies such as the Internet, Multimedia and Cable Television are proliferating changes in the mechanism of imparting education and as a consequence, traditional, formal education is slowly but steadily being replaced by modern, non-formal education. Given the dual challenges of modernization and commercialization faced by the Education Sector in India and the increasing demand for non-formal education in India. Universities and Educational Institutions in India at an extremely rapid pace. All over the world, these technologies have caused radical India will also have to take advantage of the available technologies to metamorphose into quality information providers.
With an objective to expose the decision-makers from leading Government and Private Institutions in India to state-of-the-art Information and Communications Technology and to provide a forum for evaluating the benefits of using these technologies in the process of imparting widespread quality education, a National Expository Workshop-cum-Exhibition on Information and Communication Technology in Education (INSA NEW-ICTE'96), was held at INSA, New Delhi, during October 28-30, 1996. The Workshop was jointly hosted by National Institute for .Science Communication (NISCOM), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). The keynote address in the workshop was delivered by Dr V S Ramamurthy, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India. Well-known experts presented their research and review papers in the areas addressed by the Workshop. It was also intended to bring together educationists, policy-makers, technologists and industrialists harnessing the impending communications and information revolution. Another objective of the Workshop was to discuss the possibilities of creation of essential infrastructure for gainfully utilizing state-of-the-art technology, through collaboration with leading Indian as well as international agencies. The main theme for INSA NEW-ICTE'96 was the use of Information and Communication Technology in Education and Research.
Since the structure created by the utilization of Information Technology in Education is expected to lay the foundation for future value-addition and commercial usage, a National-level Consortium was created at INSA NEW-ICTE'96 with an aim to actively assist and promote the usage of Information Technology all over India. The activities of this Consortium for Information and Communication Technology (CICT) are described in the succeeding article. Even though CICT has been formed only five ,months ago, it has already started implementing the activities listed out in its charter in earnest. Recently, CICT conducted an International Planning Workshop at TIFR, Mumbai, during March 2-4, 1997. This Workshop addressed planning issues in the development and use of Information and Communication Technology in the Academic/Education Sector of India. The Workshop was cohosted by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The aim of the Workshop was to prepare a working paper with the assistance of about 15-20 experts in the field, which may eventually be taken up by organizations such as UNESCO for possible implementation in the Indian subcontinent.
In this volume, we present some of the papers presented at INSA NEW-ICTE'96 and the subsequent UNESCO-CICT Workshop. The papers clearly bring out the facts that Information and Communications Technology has opened endless avenues to the users and India definitely needs to explore its uses in education and harness them. The proceedings should prove valuable for future directions in the use of Technology in Education in India.
Our gratitude goes to all scientists and researchers whose enthusiasm gave us the necessary input to start processing in this endeavour. Dr S K Kataria is to be thanked for volunteering to put the proceedings on the WEB (www.indialog.com or www.massiver.com). We are thankful to INSA for extending the publications support.
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