‘Digital divide exists in online education, research to find operational solutions’

Online education has become the new normal since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr K Kasturirangan, former chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization and chairman of the committee that drafted the National Education Policy 2020, said the digital divide exists and research is a Ongoing to find operational methodology that can be integrated into the Indian school education system. Kasturirangan was speaking at a virtual interaction ‘Development Dialogue’ organized by International Center Goa on Thursday. Responding to a query on bridging the digital divide, which may exclude some students from the online learning medium required due to the pandemic, Kasturirangan said, “This is the beginning of online learning. There is, of course, a digital divide. Be it internet connectivity, internet-enabled devices or a quiet study environment, All of these are greatly underestimated in their complexity of integrating them into the Indian education system. He said, “There is a lot of research going on but to have a system that can be adopted in an operational, scalable and economical sense, I think we still have to wait. I don’t think I have a very clear answer on this. There are many options that still exist.” Speaking about the importance of learning regional languages, as recommended in the NEP, Kasturirangan said that a child’s ability to learn a language is at its best when he is between 3 and 8 years old. “If taught at this stage of life, a child has immense potential to learn more languages. When you want to learn more languages ​​later, So the brain is already ready because it has matured to that level. The Japanese and the French are already doing this. We have studied those models so that our children do not lag behind in learning new languages,” Kasturirangan said. He said, “For so long, we have not paid enough attention to foreign languages. We need to do a major overhaul. In India, only 15 per cent of the people know English, most are of transactional nature only. The new policy will give them more opportunities to learn English than what they have been getting so far. We also ensured that foreign languages ​​like French, German and Japanese are also taught in universities. It is a very weak link in the system.” . We have not paid enough attention to foreign languages. We need to do a major overhaul. In India, only 15 per cent of the people know English, most are of transactional nature only. The new policy will give them more opportunities to learn English than what they have been getting so far. We also ensured that foreign languages ​​like French, German and Japanese are also taught in universities. It is a very weak link in the system.” . We have not paid enough attention to foreign languages. We need to do a major overhaul. In India, only 15 per cent of the people know English, most are of transactional nature only. The new policy will give them more opportunities to learn English than what they have been getting so far. We also ensured that foreign languages ​​like French, German and Japanese are also taught in universities. This is a very weak link in the system.” .