Mysore-based Raman International Institute of Information Technology (RiiiT) has developed innovative teaching material package for students and teachers honing IT skills.

According to RiiT CEO and Managing Director S.V. Venkatesh, the package is of international learning standard with reading text, graphics, audio, video and animations. It also consists of material for students to recap previous topics, exercises, puzzles, quiz and crosswords with illustrations.

For effective assimilation of information and communication technology skills (ICT), the ‘IT kids package’ provides students and teachers with a digital walkthrough, lab exercises, internet learning and classroom presentation.

Mr. Venkatesh says, despite growing importance and need for IT skills, IT is not taught as a tool in schools. It is still taught as a conventional subject. Changes in traditional subjects are limited, while technology upgradation is very fast.

If subject-wise this is the situation, teacher-wise competency comes into focus. Can just some computer literate be a teacher? Can he assimilate and deliver the technology knowledge which is changing at the rapid pace? Whether the head master or mistress, who is generally of a 50 plus age, is competent enough to understand and issue instructions? These are the issues that come to focus. Often, a young boy or girl is better exposed to IT than his teacher.

Besides, with growing demand for skilled IT personnel and attractive pay offers, it is hard to get capable IT teachers. An IT trained young man would prefer an IT job than the ordinary job of a teacher. Consequently, IT education comes to suffer in the schools. Though students, including rural kids, are eager and also capable of learning the basic IT skills, they are in a helpless situation.

The question, therefore, is when we are taking of satellite education, e-learning and edu-sat, can we take the primary and secondary teacher and taught to those standards. Aware of this scenario, RiiT has developed the IT kids package, which suits all the four South Indian states.

The package, consisting of attractive printed books and materials from first to 10th standard in Kannada, is available in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam, with a mixture of English. The package takes a student almost up to the CET level.

For teachers, the resource material provides lessons to support class wise contents and assessment methodology. A monthly journal on ICT is supplied to keep them abreast of the latest developments in the tech world. In addition, they are given an orientation programme to implement the IT kids’ curriculum effectively.

The CEO says the teaching material is already accepted in several schools in rural and urban areas, and begun to bridge the digital divide between the rural and urban students. Care has been taken to make the package balanced for Indian education system with cultural ethos.

Its experimental adoption in a rural school in Gundlupet has produced remarkable result. Even children of three years and above are comfortable with computers today. Almost 95 per cent coming from the farming sector, they are learning computer basics and
operation conveniently, Mr. Venkatesh adds.