Information Tech. in Education

 

Like all other fields of human activities, information technologies are also pervading different aspects of education that has enhanced learning. Students have already integrated computers in learning, particularly in institutions for higher education where IT has been deployed and is being effectively used.

There is a visible divide between graduates from IT supported high-end institutions and those without it. This is a serious issue that merits attention at all levels.

IT has already made considerable impact in distance education. With the advent of computers and internet, learning is no longer restricted to time and place. Students these days have access to a vast amount of information and resources outside the confines of classrooms and auditoriums. Lifelong learning as advocated by religion, has enabled people of all ages to improve their education and learn new things.

Open universities and other institutions that use computers and the internet (also television, and satellites) offer education in any field anywhere around the globe. Of course this does not include problems created by the digital divide, unavailability of resources to an overwhelmingly large majority, lack of quality contents on the web, linguistic and cultural barriers etc.

However, the issue is not distant learning. In fact, the aim here is to consider physical employment of computers and IT infrastructure for delivery of higher education in classrooms, laboratories, and libraries in Pakistan.

Most public sector universities and business schools still lags behind when it comes to IT. The reason? Economically, Pakistan is not yet a very strong nation. Although official statements and statistics shown indicate that the economy has started to mature, still there has always been scaling-down in education and investment and has not been treated as top priority.

Hence, graduates from many public sector universities cannot compete with those who have studied in good private sector universities. While much progress has been made in making computers and the internet available to educational institutions in the past few years, the computer-student ratio has still not been met.

“You can see more than 25 students flocking on one computer and same number waiting for their turn,” says Mohsin Khan, a university student. There have been hardly any concentrated efforts to prepare students to take advantage of IT and other resources that have been made available by the World Wide Web.

There are other serious problems besides funding. For example, most senior teachers lack technological literacy, which is the “ability to use the computer, equipped with CD-ROM player, modem, and phone or cable line, as well as output devices such as printers, to gather…, analyse, organize, and understand… information.” Of course this does not mean the role of teacher sin universities, or their abilities for that matter, is questionable.

The fact is that many senior teachers have not grown up using computers as their students have. Some teachers have become computer savvy but quite a few have still not found the opportunity or the will to do so.

For several teachers, the best technology is still a piece of chalk (or at best, a marker) and a board and the best interactive exercise is class discussion (read class participation).

Undoubtedly this is a severe handicap. Those teachers who cannot make appropriate use of computers and the internet in teaching, have trouble keeping up with their areas of specialization and staying ahead.

Hence, it is difficult for them to excite, stimulate, and motivate students and prepare them for practical life, where employers seek graduates who can get along in the global marketplace. Clearly, only information technologies can help bridge the gap between an academic and professional environment.

Computer literate students who use the internet often indulge in plagiarism and have a good chance of getting away with it. The cut-and-paste phenomenon in the first place defeats the purpose of written assignments.

Spending time and effort in such unhealthy pursuit is unproductive and wears down standards in educational institutions. The practice stunts their productivity, as students are unable to think logically, construct own arguments, and draw inferences. It is difficult if not impossible for less savvy teachers to effectively check and put an end to such practices.

Now consider the other end of the spectrum: an educational institution that has classrooms equipped with multimedia, sound systems and projectors to deliver presentations and multi-purpose computer labs.

“I bring my assignments and presentations on a pin drive. Our teaching associates transfer assignments on the teachers’ computers or I attach the removable drive with the computer in class and the multimedia software does everything else for me. Multimedia is not just a training aid but also adds variety to my work,” says a business student from the Lahore School of Economics.

Educational software and subscriptions to online research achieve services such as JSTOR (Journal storage), work stations for syndicated as well as individual work in computer laboratories and work stations in libraries are complementing computing facilities.

There are networks with their own connectivity and bandwidth. Furthermore, students bring their laptops and work in their university as they have the facility to do so.

Of course, the extent of change, because of IT and the degree to which progressive higher education enterprises have adapted to these changes are quite impossible to predict in the long run.

For now they have already earned a good reputation for their graduates in the corporations and multinationals. Students in technology-supported institutions are confident and rely more and more on their initiative for knowledge exploration.

IT enables them to manipulate information in a way that steps up their understanding and hones cognitive skills and logical aptitude, thereby broadening their horizons.

Maybe one day policy makers will think of creating a national educational grid, which will connect public as well as private sector universities, providing online information and support for students, teachers and support and management staff.

However, all learning institutions must first have the physical infrastructure required to get wired up to the any such grid. Until such facilities are provided, it is futile to think about establishing a national grid, for it will be of no use to universities that have little or no infrastructure.

Shirazi is a Pakistan based writer. His writing on Information Technology, travel, heritage, behavioral sciences, political economy, public relations and management practices appear in different publications. Shirazi holds an MBA and Linguistics (Russian Language) degrees. He has authored two books (Izhar, Ret Pe Tehreer) and translated Din Mein Charagh into Light Within.

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