India’s digital education ambitions — why it necessitates a structured roadmap

It is essential to have a strategic approach to adopting EdTech solutions to ensure both access to digital solutions and enhanced learning outcomes. This can be thought of as a four-pronged approach (a) problem articulation, (b) identifying promising research-backed technologies, (c) defining the content and software mix (solution design) and (d) enhancing states’ capacity for implementing digital initiatives. 

It is important to recognise that the adoption of EdTech is a means to an end rather than the end itself. It is therefore vital that a strategic approach to adopting EdTech solutions, grounded in research and practicality, guide these endeavours for choosing the most appropriate technologies.

This seems obvious, but in practice, seldom done. UNESCO’s latest Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report highlights the futility of providing digital inputs without focusing on learning outcomes. For instance, In Peru, the One Laptop Per Child programme distributed over 1 million laptops loaded with content, but no positive impact on learning resulted, partly due to the focus on the provision of devices instead of the quality of pedagogical integration. States can effectively identify the specific problem(s) by holding stakeholder consultations, conducting classroom observations and assessments, and robust data analysis. 

Research indicates that targeted technological interventions can aid in addressing a range of problems — from abysmal engagement to poor access to quality resources, and low learning levels within a classroom, among others. For instance, there is evidence that low learning levels within a classroom can be addressed by effective Personalised Adaptive Learning (PAL) solutions, as it tailors the educational experience to each student’s abilities, learning pace, and individual needs, adjusting the content and support in real-time to optimise their learning outcomes.

Despite such evidence, states are often biassed to procure teacher-led solutions, even when student-led approaches, such as PAL, can better address multi-level classrooms and improve learning outcomes. For this reason, SmartClasses, despite scant evidence of impact, continues to be implemented at a large scale in government schools. Therefore, instead of relying on sales pitches, media articles, and anecdotes from elite private schools, states could do well in spending time and energy in conducting accelerated proof-of-concept studies or looking for credible and relevant impact reports, if any.

In 2018, the Andhra Pradesh government adopted a similar approach, and through rigorous scoping exercises and research, it identified that low learning outcomes among students were a pertinent issue. 

While a majority of the budgets are utilised for hardware procurement it is the solution design that leads to learning. Hence, states should focus on defining the appropriate features that constitute a good solution and have robust rubrics for evaluation. Quality content that is accurate, comprehensible, contextual, and aligned to the curriculum is likely to promote student engagement and learning.

Creating outstanding digital content is a highly specialised and demanding task that requires people with expertise in pedagogy, instructional design, animation, communication, and quality assurance. To add to that, even high-quality content delivered through poorly designed software is likely to result in a sub-par experience for students and teachers alike.

Solutions that combine quality content with an easy-to-use, intuitive interface that works well across devices are likely to drive usage and learning. States that undertake the ambitious exercise of creating their content without excellent in-house or external content, instruction design, and software design teams, might be better off exploring appropriate off-the-shelf solutions. 

Such states often underestimate the importance of the technology layer, as a result of which they are unable to provide a good user experience. Further, they are likely to suffer from a lack of actionable data and reports calling into question the effectiveness of their technology spends. 

It should be clear from the above that the choice of appropriate EdTech solutions for government schools requires a focused and methodical approach on the part of education departments. Fortunately, some states like Uttar Pradesh and Haryana have shown the way by incorporating rigorous evaluation criteria across content, pedagogy, and technology into their procurement process.

This has been supported by EdTech Tulna, an evaluation index developed by experts at IIT-Bombay. The index covers multiple use cases like Smart Classrooms, PAL, and Interactive Audio Visual across K-12 grades. That EdTech Tulna is seeing interest from several quarters, including some international attention, is encouraging.

Beyond capacity for education technology evaluation, states also face an acute shortage of staff that understands the various facets of EdTech research, design, training for proficient use of EdTech, implementation, and best practices. Furthermore, often EdTech data sets and their dashboards are not included in states’ respective Vidya Samiksha Kendras leading to unavailability of meaningful usage data. An important but oft-neglected aspect is a long-term commitment to improving teacher capacity to integrate digital tools into everyday classroom intervention.

The belief in the adequacy of a half-day training program to train teachers to navigate the technology solution is a fatal flaw in the entire implementation process. Thus, it is critical that states invest in building such capacity and make provisions for robust data monitoring to exploit the full potential of edtech and drive best practices. 

A good example of a successful investment in capacity-building is the IT@School project in Kerala, now known as Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE). Since its inception, it has been responsible for designing and implementing all the critical edtech activities in the state’s government schools. A key reason for KITE’s success has been its cadre of edtech specialists and their ability to improve the technical proficiency of teachers.  

In conclusion, while technology can benefit education, effectively harnessing the potential of EdTech in a public education setting necessitates having a clear strategic goal and a strong underlying vision. This includes shifting towards research-backed technology selection and scaling up the state’s capacity to undertake and implement digital initiatives. In the absence of such strategic elements, the true potential of technology in education will continue to remain underutilised.

—The author, Dr IV Subba Rao, is former bureaucrat (IAS), who held leadership positions in education in Andhra Pradesh and Government of India, and was the Chief of Literacy and Non-formal Education at UNESCO, Paris. The views expressed here are personal.