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As more and more emphasis is laid on the use of innovation and information communication technology(ICT) as a powerful medium towards improvements in the field of education, technology has become a huge enabler, for the complete teaching-learning process. An article by Mr.Rajendra S. Pawar, chairman, NIIT on 'Dreams for India' published recently, made interesting reading. He has very steadily outlined the Govt. of India's initiatives in the field of education, followed the pace of growth of these endeavours and highlighted how they have benefitted the fabric of education at school level. Though his article primarily highlights technology assisted learning and not technology assisted teaching, yet his lines, "...revisit the role of technology in education and look at imaginative ways of using it to grapple with one of the most staggering problems that dogs elementary school in India, paucity of teachers.Through a rigorous public-private partnership, and by using Technology as the enabler, the push for universal education will get the vigour and thrust it needs..." carry an important message. However, with due regards to his stature and background, i would like to reiterate here, that the role of teacher as a catalyst in the delivery of education, cannot be overlooked. Hence, in a scenario like that of India, where there are issues like population explosion, a conscious effort should be directed towards- 1.Training and recruiting more and more teachers, and hence also creating those many new jobs. 2.Aiding the teacher through providing them with good ICT tools for the delivery of good quality education. As public-private sectoral partnerships in this direction grow, i am sure that creating those many new jobs and providing breadwinners to those many additional households will also be a step in the right direction. An interesting endeavour in this direction, is an Indian teaching system called 'Bhartiyavidya'. As laid down in Wikipedia, 'Bhartiyavidya is an Indian teaching system that attempts to integrate technology into the classroom while maintaining the student-teacher relationship. The system has found some recent success within India'. Bhartiyavidya is a system that can be used by the teachers for more effective classroom teaching alongwith other conventional teaching methods and tools. The philosophy behind Bhartiyavidya is that the teaching-learning process is sacred and should not be tampered with; the teacher should just be provided with the right tools to perform the function of imparting knowledge. This is a beautiful audio-visual medium which succeeds in increasing the interest of the learner, increasing conceptual clarity and retentivity as also incorporate measuring tools for perception analysis and has found widespread favour with students and teachers.
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