COMPUTER EDUCATION IN SCHOOLS

6.1 The programme of Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools (CLASS) was started in 250 schools in 1984-85. It was extended to 500 more schools in 1985-1986 and another 500 schools in 1986-87. Evaluation of the scheme through the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad reveals that:
- de-mystification objective of the project was partially achieved. 15.6% of the students were de-mystified as per the criterion developed for the evaluation.
- the project was implemented best in Kendriya Vidyalayas followed by State Government schools, aided/private schools in that order.
- in most of the schools "welcome package" was the most widely used package. All the packages supplied were not used in most of the schools.
- there was a long time lag in the sanction and installation of systems in the schools.
- English language posed a problem for both students and teachers in a large number of schools.
6.2 The NCERT and the CMC have started the work of generating software packages and 14 such packages have been developed and supplied to schools so far. The CMC has developed key boards and ROMS in 11 regional languages, namely, Marathi, Oriya, Telugu, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Bengali and Assammese. The scheme has been revised on the basis of experience gained and evaluation. The salient features of the revised scheme expected to be finalised very soon include -
- Coverage of 13000 higher secondary schools by 1990.
- Supply of at least five systems in each school.
- Transaction of the programme at plus two level and integration of the programme with the curriculum.
- Resource support to schools through about regional, local and district level resource centres.
6.3 An expert group was constituted in 1986 under the Chairmanship of the Education Secretary to recommend the programme objectives, the hardware and software choice and management system for implementation of CLASS Programme. It has given its report some time back. This report has made a series of recommendations for the implementation of the programme keeping in view the provisions in the NPE, the experi- ence gained in implementation of the programme since 1984-85 and the evaluation of the programme done by the Space Application Centre, Ahmedabad. Based on this, a regular programme is being finalised for covering all the higher secondary schools by 1990. This programme would have some significant improvements over the pilot phase. Some of these are:
a) Literacy would remain the immediate objective of the programme gradually leading to educational computations for students indi- vidually and in groups.
b) Instead of 2 micro-computers 5-8 micro-computers would be given to a school to allow all the students at plus 2 stage in the school to be covered by the programme.
c) A large programme of software generation would be taken up with clear emphasis on Indian languages.
d) Resource Centre support would be provided to schools at district and regional levels.
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The final decision of the Government on this programme is likely to obtained in the next few months.
Simultaneously to allow for continuity in implementation, an additional 700 schools are being added to the 1250 already covered under the CLASS Project. These schools will be provided the systems comprising of 5 micro-computers each. The selection of schools has already been done in 28 States and UTs and for the remaining would be completed in coming weeks. Three teachers from each school as before would be trained during summer vacation and implementation of the programme in these schools would start in July-August, 1988.
Source : http://www.education.nic.in