Plan to award teachers laptop

Charu Sudan Kasturi, New Delhi
The Telegraph
Indian schoolteachers may soon find new incentives to use technology to make classes more interesting: national recognition, a chance to chat with the President as well as the Prime Minister, and a personal laptop.

Half a century after instituting national awards for teachers, India is preparing a 21st-century avatar for educators rated best in the use of information and communication technology in class.

The human resource development ministry has proposed new National Awards for Teachers in ICT, which for the first time will recognise teachers who best use modern technology to liven up classes.

The proposal is yet to be cleared by the cabinet, but the ministry is keen to launch the new awards on National Education Day on November 11 this year. The awards will be repeated annually on the same day.

The ministry’s move signals the government’s intentions to increasingly focus on promoting technology as a teaching tool — both in school and higher education — in a shift from the past, sources said.

The most comprehensive government study on the use of ICT in schools, conducted in 2006 by ministry officials, showed that even in technologically developed centres like Ahmedabad, each school on an average had six computers. On an average, 78 students had to share a computer and hardly any teacher used technology as an aid to teaching.