The Tribune Principals’ Meet 2024: Deliberating on holistic approach for technology integration

Principals and representatives from prominent schools of Amritsar, Tarn Taran and Gurdaspur today attended the annual edition of Principal’s Meet organised by The Tribune Group of Newspapers in association with Chitkara University. This year’s topic was ‘Technology Integration in schools: Opportunities and challenges’.

The keynote speaker was Aadi Garg, a motivational speaker and career counsellor, who has been active in the education industry for past eight years. “Technology doesn’t mean revolution, it means willingness to transform workforce. Technology integration in education has to be done not just in classrooms but also in terms of school managements where the entire school workforce is transformed and upgraded to function efficiently. Data driven school managements, school systems that focus on social and emotional learning in addition to digital classrooms is what we need,” said Aadi.

Preeti Chaudhry, director, Chitkara University, also emphasised on holistic approach toward technology integration in schools as well as in institutions of higher education. “Classrooms with well-equipped tech-driven learning tools would only work when the students are able to absorb the information disseminated, through a healthy, holistic process. That’s why we stress on happiness of our students while we equip them with knowledge and skill through various programmes.”

Representatives from over 60 schools from Amritsar, Batala, Gurdaspur and Tarn Taran who attended the session interacted with the experts and put forth their views on the integration of technology in school education and the challenges that they faced in its implementation.

Dr. Vinodita Sankhyan, Principal, Shri Ram Ashram School said that schools need to sensitise students, parents as well as teachers towards using technology under monitoring and need-based environment. “We cannot push away technology as it promises a growth that is three times faster than traditional methods. But it must be adopted through a holistic approach,” she said.

Capt Harjinder Singh from Captain School, Fathergarh Churian, Amritsar, said technology integration in schools is inevitable and must be promoted through need based and constant up gradations. “The most important contributors in this integration are the teachers, who need to be given more access to digital literacy, necessary skills to take the scope of tech-driven education beyond virtual classrooms and computer labs.

Principals speak

“The need of the hour is to adopt technology driven learning tools at a pace that is healthy for students as well as teachers. It must be done under monitoring and with an approach that is holistic.”

Dr Vinodita Sankhyan, Principal, Shri Ram Ashram School, Amritsar

One of the biggest challenges in integrating technology in school education is to create an digitally literate workforce, i.e teachers. The transition is more focused on teachers rather than students, as the later is in constant up date with technology, while teachers need to learn to integrate traditional concepts with technologically advanced tools.”

Anjana Gupta, Anjana Gupta, Principal, DAV International School, Amritsar

The subject is quite significant as India aspires to achieve its target of 100% digital literacy by 2030, we need to create future workforce, which is market ready and technologically adaptive. Working towards finding solutions to the challenges in this process should be the goal.

Amanpreet Kaur, Principal, St Soldier Elite School, Amritsar

The session was quite informative and immersive as it deals with an important question of technology integration in school systems to prepare students for the global education ecosystem. It is a commendable initiative by The Tribune to engage educators in initiating a dialogue around the subject and providing a platform for expert interaction.

Harpreet Kaur, Principal, Rosebud School, Amritsar

Whether its creating digital literacy among students and teachers or adopting tech-driven learning tools, it’s important to also review the outcome of such up grades periodically to ensure that learning is enhanced and not restricted.

Skylark George, Principal, St Francis School, Batala

The most important contributors in this integration are the teachers, who need to be given more access to digital literacy to take the scope of tech-driven education beyond virtual classrooms.

Captain Harjinder Singh, Captain’s School, Fatehgarh Churian