Education is the most important criteria for individual as well as collective development of society and State. Primary education is the basic bedrock upon which the entire edifice of education and human development stand. It provides children with the basic insight to a new world and provides them with the necessary tools to proceed through various fields of life. Unfortunately, the current state of primary education system in Pakistan is very bleak.
Millions of children are out of school and victims of child labor and the remaining who are going to schools are not getting quality education either. Various factors are responsible for the poor condition of primary education system which include lack of infrastructure, dearth of qualified teachers, uneven student-teacher ratio, absence of laboratories, absentee teacher, teaching of conventional techniques and poor teacher parent interaction.
With the world changing so rapidly and the rise of technology in every aspect of life, it is important that we integrate these changes in education as well. Technology is prevalent in every sector now and it is equally important for education, especially if we want to compete in the global world. Whether we like it or not, technology is everywhere; and in order for our students to survive in post-secondary education and the business world, they must know how to use technology to their best advantage.
Technology is everywhere–entwined in almost every part of our culture. It affects how we live, work, play, and most importantly learn. With mobile and other wireless devices becoming an increasing requirement across every industry today, it only makes sense that our schools also effectively deploy mobile technology in the classroom.
Integrating technology in education helps students stay engaged. Most students today have been using mobile devices like tablets and smartphones to play and learn since they start to crawl. Therefore, it seems logical to align today’s classrooms with the way young students want and are used to learning.
For many years, we tried to give answers to the question of advantages and disadvantages between traditional and modern teaching. According research by International Journal of Cognitive Research in Science, Engineering and Education “The period from 1967 to 1972 is considered to be a period of consolidation of educational technology, which has become the most commonly used term in the science of pedagogy and the educational process. With the application of educational technology, students can independently progress in mastering teaching materials, to choose the pace of work, to repeat the material that is not sufficiently clear, that after tests are performed they can immediately get results and track their progress. Interactive, multimedia content provides a great advantage of modern learning over traditional learning. With the application of educational technology we get feedback between the teacher and the student”
The presence of educational technology is growing in the classroom. The new generation of children come ready to work with these new technologies, which play an important role in children’s learning and acquiring various cognitive knowledge so educational technology must be incorporated into future curricula. The application of educational technology enhances skills and cognitive characteristics. With the help of new technology comes an explosion of learning and receiving new information, especially on mobile devices. However, the question of whether teachers are trained to keep up with them still remains.
United We Reach is an NGO based in Lahore working keenly towards achieving this goal. They have collaborated with more than 500 government schools in the country and revamped them by providing the students and teachers with tablets that can monitor both their performances and assess them on daily basis. Another important feature of this technology is making sure that every school working with UWR provides students the same curriculum to diminish the disparity that students face in curriculum.
These projects are successfully running across the country focusing on Punjab and are the result of UWR’s Chairperson Ms. Sabahat Rafique’s vision.
Published in Daily Times, October 19th 2018.