Process Note on Series of e-Discussion on National Policy on ICT in School Educaion
The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India, has initiated the process to formulate the ‘National Policy on ICT in School Education’ with a focus on schools to address the needs and challenges for teaching and learning in the 21st century using technology tools.
The Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI), a UN ICT Task Force founded organisation, will provide strategic assistance to MHRD. GeSCI has partnered with the Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) to coordinate and facilitate the process of consultations.
The policy building process seeks to define a national consultation process combining online thematic conferences/e-discussions as well as several regional consultations on issues. The aim is to engage with a wide range of stakeholders whose experiences, views, suggestions and recommendations will be collated towards providing a consultative and participatory policy development process.
Model of Engagement: Participatory Policy Building Process
The model of engagement for the policy building process is based on Multi –Stakeholder Partnerships (MSPs), creating lasting and meaningful impact at all levels of policy action and implementation across India. A more holistic approach to a National Policy on ICT in School Education formulation and implementation process has been recommended.
The participatory approach aims to create a dynamic group of stakeholders with unique complementary strengths or core competencies. The stakeholders add value to development efforts, pool their expertise and resources in solving problems. The model of engagement includes
- Knowledge Sharing: Engage with Communities of Practice in the process of developing the National Policy on ICT in School Education
- Policy Dialogue: Share learning, experiences and ideas from people and organisations working in/for ICT in Education at national and regional levels
- Partnerships – Encourage and build focus groups with lead partners on ICT infrastructure, e-content, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation, research and innovation, quality in school education, public-private partnerships, and other key thematic areas identified for developing a robust policy
- Knowledge Integration: Incorporate input, suggestions and recommendations to create an enriched policy document with a readiness for implementation in the states
The Ministry of Human Resources Development, with its strategic partners, has engaged with more than 150 experts and organisations working in ICT and education through national consultations and workshops to collate their views, suggestions and recommendations undertaken in the past activities, since July 2007 when the first formal national consultation was held (www.csdms.in/gesci/). The aim is to engage in wider discussions extending to pedagogues and technology in education practitioners, as well as geographically spread pool of experts.
UN SE-ICTD- EDUCATION (cross-post) COMMUNITY CONSULTATIONS
A national consultative and collaborative process, to understand the needs, challenges, and issues of the states and union territories, is indispensable for formulating an inclusive and holistic policy. This will ensure that the policy represents the views and aspirations of various stakeholders, acts as a guiding document for the States to adapt it according to their local requirements, and meets the Education Goals of the country.
The Department of Education, MHRD invites you to submit your recommendations/ suggestions/ position papers, to assist the Ministry to formulate a National Policy on ICT in School Education.
Through this call for recommendations/ suggestions/ position papers, we solicit inputs from leaders and visionaries in international agencies, industry, academia, NGOs and government to identify the needs, gaps, challenges, and issues of ICTs in Education sector in India and to contribute to the goal of defining a road map for building a National Policy on ICT in School Education.
The ICTD and Education CoP consultations aim to bring together the expertise of over 1400 members each of the community as multi-stakeholders for wider consultations. This would add value to the process of the ongoing face-to-face consultations. The current maturity of the facilitation and expertise gathering role that SE-ICTD and SE-Education groups will bring to the deliberations to a logical crystallisation stage for the policy formulation process.
What to do
The following outline presents the focus areas in the policy which aims to address integration of information and communications technologies in school education to augment the achievement of educational goals in India. The policy has defined the key thematic pillars on ICT Infrastructure, e-Content, Capacity Building, Innovation and Research, Monitoring and Evaluation, Quality in School Education, and Public Private Partnerships:
We invite comments from the Solutions Exchange community members to provide their inputs on the seven thematic areas. The members are invited to reflect on the norms and standards under each thematic area to build a practical, functional and effective mechanism to implement the policy. School education sector in our country runs across geographic gradient of urban, semi-urban, rural, minority areas and geographically remote areas. Hence, ICT in school education should enhance educational goals across all gradients. A series of discussions on the thematic focus areas will be pursued to solicit members’ responses to specific sections/parts of the draft document. Members are also welcome to read through the entire draft and provide insights on perspectives and directions.
Process Planning
- Background note on the process of online consultations
- Invitation from experts, members and other key stakeholders to participate in the online consultations in the Solution Exchange Communities of Practices – ICTD and Education
- Posts to be made on a two-weekly basis to the list engaging on specific sections of the dossiers
- Collating the suggestions, experiences and ideas
- Creating a bank of resources provided by members
- Input into the draft policy formulation and language changes
- Re-draft to be shared for consensus building
- Present the summary of recommendations and re-draft provided by the CoP to the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India
Considering your experience and expertise in this field we would like the members to share their experiences and inputs on the thematic pillars of the draft policy. We plan to post a query on each thematic for a span of two weeks which would lead to comments, suggestions and recommendations on all the seven thematic pillars by the end of fourteen weeks. Collation of the views with the summary report shall be prepared at the end of the consultation process. Finally, the summary report will be presented to the Ministry of HRD as inputs to the ‘National Policy in ICT in School Education.’
