Teacher’s Empowerment In Education Ecosystem

“Schools are a part of the learning ecosystem. The deeper learning requires appropriate utilisation of tools. The pace of the change is so fast that it's important to personalise and differentiate learning and the kind of tools which are needed for that. The collective effort of the learning ecosystem with strategic planning and implementation would ensure the selection and utilisation of appropriate tools,” said Yogesh Dhingra, Founder and Managing Director, CourseLeap Education; Former Head - Math and Director - Academics, Dhirubhai Ambani International School Mumbai.

Expressing the apprehensions about the technological advancement, Dhirendra Singh, Principal, Birla School, Pilani, shared, “There are challenges ahead with the intervention of technology, especially with AI. We have to train our teachers about the utilisation of AI. AI can easily pass the current assessment test, so our teachers have to cross that threshold now and they have to put themselves at a much higher level. Additionally, we should ensure that technological dependence should not create conceptual gaps.”

Teachers and technology
"Teachers are the fundamental pillars in the education system and their empowerment as a leader is a deciding factor in children’s education growth. Various levels of skilling should be a smooth hand holding of the administrative staff, leadership of the school with the teachers and subsequently with the students. Parental cooperation will be inevitable with smooth classroom transactions and desired outcomes,” stated Smita Chaturvedi, Vice Principal, The Scindia School Gwalior.

“There is more openness to experiment and go into unexplored territories like artificial intelligence (AI). The scepticism around it has been mitigated and the technological assistance to reduce hours of labour is widely accepted. The sole focus remained on productivity instead of AI replacing humans,” underlined Sudhir Kukreja, Co Founder, Credence International Schools, Mumbai.

The pandemic leverage
“Pandemic has certainly brought about tremendous knowledge to the school industry. The pandemic changed the school from merely an institution of imparting knowledge to an institution of skill set. During the pandemic most of the schools focussed on empowering teachers. Although there was a challenge to the nominal school fraternity, the school industry faced the crisis swiftly and became seamless within a fortnight,” said Shylaja Menon, Principal, The Shri Ram Universal School, Bengaluru.

“The schools where there is a progressive approach to teaching learning pedagogy had minimal challenge during pandemic. The organisational portal enabled virtual training and bridged the learning gap successfully,” added Menon.

MG Jacob, Director and Principal, Tashi Namgyal Academy, also emphasised the pivotal role of pandemic in the education infrastructure and said, “COVID has compelled to adapt advanced technologies and boosted edtech companies. Edtech companies also alleviated the mundane activities from teachers’ job. The assessment system and its design also improved with the pandemic.”  

The academicians were present at the NexGen Edu Summit 2024, organised by ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education in association with BW Education, on 29 April 2024 in Bangalore.