Can 'digitally facilitated' writing enable teachers to develop themselves as academic writers? This was the question that an IT for Change team attempted to answer through a 'Writing workshop for government school teachers'. The teachers' response was unequivocal. Thirteen of them wrote a paper based on an innovation…
Gurumurthy Kasinathan
2024
IT for Change, in collaboration with the Centre for Labour Studies, National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, presented to the Karnataka government a memo on creating a government-supported ride-hailing platform in the state. The memo focused on the issues and challenges faced by new entrants in digital markets like ride-hailing…
2024
English in India is a passport to socio-economic mobility. English, however, is not taught successfully, except in a few elite schools inaccessible to most students, who rely on the public (government) school system instead. This project has implemented an AI-driven software to support English language teachers in the public school system…
2023
Imagine you joined a course without knowing that the instruction was in Russian. You would understand nothing. In a poignant scene from the Hindi movie, Taare Zameen Par, the parents of Ishaan, who is dyslexic, are asked to read Chinese and learn. They struggle and fail. This is what happens to thousands of Indian…
2023
Abstract
Twitter, the social-networking platform which serves as a socio-political barometer, was recently purchased by Elon Musk, owner of Tesla. Musk has fired 50% of Twitter staff, toyed with its policies on registration and posts, making it an oligarch’s doll. Clearly the world needs a ‘global digital public town hall’ governed in…
2023
Towards the end of a workshop conducted for school teachers, a curious phenomenon is often observed; many women teachers become restless. They sit tight anxiously clutching the handbags on their laps, steal furtive glances at their watches (or phones) to check the time, and even pointedly look towards the exit.
Many of them have to cook…
2023
Teachers will ‘teach to the test’ and focus on ensuring that the student can write answers to questions related to the syllabus, rather than ‘teach the learner’.
The Karnataka Education Department recently announced common examinations for grade 5 and 8 students. The Schools Association appealed against this decision, contending that…
2023
IT for Change has played a crucial role in highlighting the education emergency in India caused by the unprecedented and prolonged school closures in India due to COVID-19. In July 2021, we catalyzed the creation of the National Coalition on the Education Emergency, bringing together researchers and educational professionals, social activists…
2022
Twelve years after the Right to Education Act was passed, public investment in schools remains abysmally low.
The Karnataka Commissioner of School Education on October 19 issued a circular, allowing school monitoring committees to collect Rs 100 or more every month from each parent as a donation to the school contingency fund.
This was…
2022
The Ministry of School Education and Literacy recently released the 2021-22 Unified District Information System for Education (U-DISE) report, which provides information about all schools, teachers and students in India. A whole host of information; student enrolment, teacher deployment and school infrastructure including drinking water,…