Principals deliberate on technology integration at The Tribune’s edu event

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 31

Principals and representatives from prominent schools of the city, affiliated with the PSEB and CBSE, today attended the programme, ‘Technology Integration in schools: Opportunities and challenges’. The programme was organised by The Tribune in association with Chitkara University today at Hotel Hyatt.

The keynote address on the topic was given by Aadi Garg, a motivational speaker and career counsellor. He said as educators, principals were the architects of the future. Justifying the topic, Garg said there was a dire need to bridge the gap between the parents and teachers for shaping the future of the students. To this end, continuous interaction between parents and teachers was a must, he added.

The speaker asked the parents to open up with the school authorities, keep a check and help in shaping the overall personality of the students.

The principals networked to accrue beneficial ideas, queries were raised on many topics and extensive discussions were held on the occasion.

Sant Ishar Singh School’s piricipal, Dr Dhiraj Thapliyal, said it was a significant step taken by The Tribune and Chitkara University as after the Covid, the offline studies were taken over by the online studies, even in schools, which brought many changes — good and bad. There was a need to learn and become tech-savvy in this digital era. The online platform provided a push towards self-learning, Dr Thapliyal added.

Ashish Sawney, principal, Bal Bharti School, said the times had changed and students could not achieve their academic goals by merely becoming bookworms, they needed to learn the holistic approach towards life.

Dr Sanjiv Chandel, principal, RS Model Senior Secondary School, said in this era, the government schools could not compete with the private ones affiliated with different boards for the simple reason that the students in these schools came from underprivileged backgrounds, for whom technological advancement was not that easy and that there was a pressing need to extend support to these schools, Chandel added. “Technology has made the lives easy — safety of students, attendance of teachers and students, smart classes, timetable adjustments — everything is just a click away. Technology has both positive and negative impacts, we need to understand and move sensibly towards shaping the future of the students,” he added.

General secretary of School Sangh, Punjab, and principal of SND Vidya Mandir, Bhuvnesh Bhatt, said it was not easy to adopt the change, especially to those coming from underprivileged backgrounds. “There were many challenges the schools faced while implementing technology integration. In schools where students are from ‘needy’ families, it was not easy to accept the change. They did not have proper resources to move with others,” he added. The principals believed that technology needed regular updating.

Preeti Chaudhry, director, Chitkara University, said that her intuition was well-equipped with the latest technology and that its students were able to deliver well. She added Chitkara University provided a platform to the students to learn to grow with a holistic approach.