report SCHOOL TRACK
Transforming School Education The World Education Summit 2011 organised exclusive sessions pertaining to school education on various thematic issues like meeting global standards in school education; power of ICT, continuous and comprehensive evaluation. The sessions were graced by eminent speakers from the government, academia and industry across the world, who shared their ideas towards building effective school education system. Report:
L-R: Kunal Sharma, Dr Thomas Christie, Son Kuswadi, Prof MA Siddiqui , Shakila Shamsu, Raj Grover, Manish Upadhyay
LOCALISED LEARNING IN A GLOBALISED CONTEXT: CAPACITY BUILDING, CONTENT AND TRAINING OF TRAINERS chair: Prof M A Siddiqui, Former Chairperson, National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) Teresa Tong
Speakers • Shakila Shamsu, Former Joint Adviser, Planning Commission, Government of India • Dr Thomas Christie, Director, Aga Khan University Examination Board • Son Kuswadi, Education Attaché, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia • Manish Upadhyay, COO, EnglishEdge • Teresa Tong, Traning Specialist-Asia Pacific, Mimio • Kunal Sharma, Founder & Director, Mexus Education • Raj Grover, CEO, Rumi Education
Dr Thomas Christie
/ 2011 12 digitalLEARNING august www.digitallearning.in
The session highlighted the divergent local learning processes and consequences of exposure to international duress. Issues such as localised learning in a global context, dynamics within network relations and effects of regional cooperation in education were addressed in the session. It is important to know how localised future learning spaces need to be and how can they maintain their cultural relevance and authenticity, while simultaneously catering to a global community and encouraging dialogue between culturally dichotomous groups of learners. Suggestions for deriving local solutions from global data were discussed by the panelists. There is a need to bring about a change in learning and examine the examination boards. ICT set up in classroom should go beyond the hardware and extensive use of internet can enhance the reach of content. It is very important that the context should be provided, which can be achieved by creating easy to understand methodologies like docu-dramas, comics/ graphic novels on curriculum content, and by creating a platform to compete. Moreover, incentives for learning can also be created and to promote science by organising technology competition for school students. Suggestions: • Focus on glocal solutions in education • Address challenges in teaching as a profession • Stress on teachers’ development • Modify teachers’ training and capacity building to meet global standards keeping local reality into account • Collaborative learning to be encouraged • Transformed learning experience with ICT