Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia

Status and Trends of Educational Media in India: Allusion to Dr Bhupen Hazarika, a pioneer in Educational Media Research

Sanjaya MishraDirector, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia

November 5, 2013, Guwahati, Assam

Dr. Bhupen Hazarika

Padma Vibhusan Dr. Bhupen Hazarika -- the illustrious son of the soil

Dr.Hazarika’s music is eternal and connects with the people

Doctoral work on Educational Technology in 1952 from Teachers College, Columbia University

Photo Credit: Wikipedia/User:Ubphotos

Some ideas in his Doctoral work Education is necessary for a strong and vibrant

democracy; Education should help everyone, including

farmers, labourers, weavers, parents, and tribal population of India;

Education should foster rational inquisitiveness of human beings;

Visual symbols play significant role in the society, especially in the democratic process;

In order to improve basic social education, audio-visual methods play a significant role;

Basic teacher training courses should include competencies of audio-visual methods of teaching;

Some ideas in his Doctoral work Adult illiteracy is a major problem for overall

development of the country; One-world thought can be imparted through use of

audio-visual media, as they have the power to transfer thoughts without change and even illiterates can understand them;

To achieve the goal of world citizenship we bring the world to the community, and radio can play a significant role in this;

The process of measurement of community behaviour is best carried on by the adult members of the village, and therefore, to educate adults group experiences must be used for social informal education;

Audio-visual materials produced by the United Nations and UNESCO be used by adult educators for a better understanding of the basic unity in diversity, and strengthen democracy.

Commonwealth of Learning

Commonwealth of Learning -- established in 1987

Helps developing nations improve access to quality education and training

CEMCA serves as a regional unit of COL for the Commonwealth Asia

Overview of my Presentation

Higher education in India Use of Open and Distance Learning Technology in education Problems of educational media use Emerging developments on use of ICT in

education

Higher Education in India Gross Enrolment Rate:

18.8% 20.3 millions students in

higher education Increasing demands of

higher education – need for more universities (NKC report)

Highly dependent on Government support

Need to rethink access to higher education in terms of cost and quality

Educational Technology Developments

Early examples include the Delhi School TV project and Satellite Instructional Television Experiment

Gap in policy and practice ET has been grossly underutilized Distribution of technology tools to

schools did not yield desired results Computer Literacy and Studies (CLASS)

project had modest success

Educational Technology Developments

UGC Country-wide Classroom (1984) IGNOU (1985) – extensive use of audio

and video for education Interactive TV (one-way video and two-

way audio) in 1993 EDUSAT in 2004 with capability for two-

way audio and video Virtual Campus Initiative in 1998

Government Support for Educational Technology

Govt of India IT Taskforce (1998)

NPTEL (2007) NMEICT (2009) ICT@Schools

(2013) NROER (2013)

Problems of Technology Integration in Education

Understanding the affordances of technology

No Significant Difference Cultural bias towards face-to-face

education Understanding the potentials of ODL to

increase access with quality and low cost

Appreciation of ‘learning’ as constant and ‘time’ as variable in education system

Emerging Technologies and Possibilities eLearning opportunities Massive Open Online

Courses (MOOCs) Open Educational

Resources (OERs) Separation of Certification

from learning opportunities (e.g. OERU)

World OER Congress and OER Policy

Improving Quality: Dr. Hazarika’s Criteria

Does it appeal to reason? Is it scientifically sound? Is it recent? Is the content substantial? Is it adaptable? – this one is

highly significant in today’s digital technologies

Making Dr. Hazarika Vision Real

Creating educational resources in digital media that can be easily adopted and contextualized – release all educational materials as OER

Use educational media to strengthen democracy – use the power of MOOCs to create ‘learning society’

Thank You