INTRODUCTION
The
pace of change brought about by new technology has lent
significant changes in the way people live, work, learn
and play worldwide. But the education system in the developing
countries like India is yet to catch the bandwagon. Though
the Information Technology revolution has brought in radical
changes in all walks of life, it is quite disheartening
that our classrooms and teaching system could not encompass
this advancement in technology in the journey towards a
quality education system.
IT@SCHOOL
is the project of the General Education department, Government
of Kerala to introduce IT enabled teaching and learning
in over 2600 high schools (984 Government High schools,
1260 Government Higher Secondary Schools and 375 Government
Vocational Higher Secondary Schools) of the State. The project
commenced its operation during the year 2002-03 with the
introduction of IT in standard VIII. The project aims to
integrate information technology into the mainstream curriculum
of the high schools and higher secondary schools with a
view to enhance the intellectual productivity of teachers,
to improve students’ learning capabilities and to
increase the management efficiency of school administrators.
Right from the inception, the Project has been making efforts
to strengthen the Information Technology resources required
to usher in IT enabled education system. There were only
around 2000 computers across the schools of the State when
the Project took off in the year 2001, which has now reached
to 30000 plus computers, with almost all high schools having
at least one computer lab. The project has completed the
first phase of its objective, i.e., to provide training
to teachers and to provide the basic infrastructure requirements
in schools to facilitate IT education. Now the project is
in second phase of its realisation i.e., transferring of
the complete high school teaching into IT enabled one.
