At the time of Independence, the government exercised a monopoly on all decision-making and consequently enjoyed the prerogative of spelling out goals. Today, as a consequence of globalisation, emergence of market forces, diminishing role —and resources —of government, this monopoly and prerogative is greatly weakened.

Communication is the icon of the new age — and the new millennium. The impact of the great Information Technology revolution goes far beyond technology innovations. The 21st century will be as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 18th. The IT revolution is breaking geographical boundaries, giving access to unlimited information to anybody and everybody without discrimination and in the process changing people’s minds, ideas and views as never before. These breathtaking changes provide a conducive ambience for a drastic overhaul of the education apparatus.

Not only is the environment for change conducive, indeed change has become imperative. If governments fail to take the initiative, the private sector will step in and market forces will determine the agenda for education in the new millennium. These trends are already emerging on the horizon—witness the phenomenal rise and growth of education corporates like NIIT, Aptech.

To borrow a phrase from business parlance, education in the new millennium will be customer friendly, technology driven, interactive. Students will be taught what is relevant with techniques that are contemporary.

While content is a product of, among other factors, goals and objectives, techniques of education are more dynamic in that they are influenced by as well as influence academic content. Between content and technique there is a mutually interactive relationship. It follows that if technique is static, content will become obsolete. The symbiotic relationship between goals, content and technique can be expressed as below:

The "techniques"— if at all they can be described as such — of imparting education have evolved from centuries old Guru-Shishya tradition where the Guru (read teacher) is the repository and giver of all knowledge and wisdom while the Shishya (read pupil) is the receptor. This traditional relationship model, carried into the classroom conceives of education and learning as a one-way process where the student is not to question why but to do or try. Whatever the social and religious sanction for this relationship model, in the academic sphere it has certainly retarded the development of the spirit of free inquiry, which is the basis for all advancement of knowledge.

The main components of the current education system are: classroom, curriculum, faculty and pupil. Any restructuring process will have to tackle these components individually and collectively. Presently a student has to learn what the management feels he ought to learn. The management, in turn, is also constrained. It may well realise that what is being taught is not what is best for the student. But it is helpless. It does not have any say in framing the syllabi. Given that the syllabi is immutable, the management is even more constrained in changing the teaching methods, because the faculty/staff are permanent. There is little flexibility in changing the staff, even less in changing their mindset. The result is a mechanical process of education through the medium of the textbook.

The smart school classroom will have a slew of IT tools that will completely transform the manner in which education is imparted. The teacher will still be the fulcrum of teaching in the classroom — indeed IT will reinforce this position rather than supplant it, as feared by some. The crucial difference is that teaching will no longer be restricted to the limits of the teacher’s knowledge. IT tools will enable the teacher not only to access knowledge worldwide but also to deliver it to the students in formats and style that make learning an interesting, educative and stimulating experience. A large part of traditional textual content will be replaced by virtual-reality multimedia content. A typical classroom will have about 30 students with 15 PCs. It will have a display screen for computer projections along with a traditional board for writing with felt pen. The classroom will have digital cameras linked to the computers. The Internet will enable the students to listen live to a lecture from London on "Developmental Economics" by Amartya Sen . The discussion will be interactive and Prof Sen will field questions from the students (and the teacher, if you like). The Internet will link the classrooms with similar classrooms in London, Toronto, New York and Singapore and facilitate organising inter-school debates, discussions, quiz competitions and even a chess tournament!

The issue most critical to the growth of a Smart School environment or Computer Aided Learning is development of curriculum software. Today provision of computers in schools is equated with "computerisation" in education. Curriculum software is virtually non-existent. A few private sectors companies have made very elementary efforts in this direction. The sum total of their efforts is putting text and a few still pictures related to the subject on CDs. To comprehend the gigantic potential of the Internet the initiative must come from the government. For example, a simple topic like generation of power is described quite vividly in a couple of pages in good textbooks. In some schools visits to a nearby power-generating dam are also arranged to give students first hand experience.

Today, however, with powerful multimedia software students can be taken through a ‘virtual reality’ simulated experience of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. After this presentation the teacher can take over and engage the class in discussion. This process of learning is infinitely more educative and stimulating to both the teacher and the taught than the traditional system of giving written ‘notes’ and then having the students to ‘mug’ them up for the exams. However, to expect teachers or academicians to produce curriculum software is barking up (or ‘byting" at) the wrong tree. It is as unrealistic as expecting a best-selling novelist to write the script and produce and direct a blockbuster from the novel. For generating quality curriculum software we have to turn to professional ad/film makers and multimedia experts.

To produce a ‘hit’ software out of a single textbook is no less daunting a challenge than producing a hit film from a bestseller. And no less risky too since investment will be huge. To convert one textbook on a single subject to virtual reality may cost anything from 20 lakh to 2 crore. Once, however, quality curriculum software is freely available ‘computerisation’ in schools will follow automatically since every school would like to take advantage of the software freely available. This is the direction in which the resources of the Central Government must be expended if we are to uplift the quality of teaching and learning at the middle and secondary levels. Once the course curriculum is converted to software, we can go further and even consider developing "flexi syllabi" to incorporate course content specific to a student or to a small group of students. This is because the present regime of uniform standardised syllabi allows no scope for exploring and pursuing individual creativity. The ‘flexi-syllabi" will also be a useful tool for promoting ‘project work’ as part of the curriculum. Project work builds up and encourages qualities of leadership, team spirit and creativity. Projects can relate to academic, social and community concerns.

The existing system of a permanent, lifelong faculty will have to give way to a visiting and contract faculty. The permanent or core faculty will not exceed 25 per cent of the total faculty strength. The objective is to access the best professional skills and avoid the burden of staff with outdated/redundant knowledge. It is only reasonable to expect qualified staff to be compensated suitably, commensurate with their skills and experience.

The use as distinct from spread of the IT as an instrument to change the content and technique of imparting education will profoundly impact the pupil. First, the focus will be on the child instead of the curriculum. Secondly through IT we can hope to make the child an aware, instead of merely an educated, citizen. Lastly, IT will help to forcefully input values relevant at the personal, social, community and even global level.

From the foregoing, the inescapable conclusion is that the imperatives for change in academia arise out of revolutionary changes in communications technology, globalisation, emergence of global issues (environment, human rights, nuclear disarmament). Global power is becoming synonymous with economic power, which rests on the solid foundations of superior technology, and knowledge, which, in turn, flourish best in an environment of freedom—academic, social, economic and political.

The country is witnessing the first ripples in the placid waters of academia, albeit in the professional sphere. Education corporates like NIIT, Aptech have moved in to fill a void in higher professional education. Worthy as the efforts of these corporates are, it is important to recognise that they have created a niche segment for themselves — namely higher IT professional skills — in the education sector. Thus while they are playing a useful role in spreading knowledge and awareness of IT skills, they have not contributed significantly towards the use of IT as an instrument of change in the content and technique of imparting education. In this sense the emerging IT corporates may be looked upon as pioneers, certainly not as revolutionaries. Further, more importantly, the efforts of the IT corporates are presently limited to the sphere of higher education. IT does not impact secondary and middle education, which is the level where IT must make its entry. And we are not talking of incorporating IT or computers as a subject of study in the curriculum but of using Information Technology as the medium of education at the middle and secondary school level.