“Digitisation is changing the face of education”

New age learners are hooked on to digitisation and online learning. For teachers, it’s been a challenging journey to get adapted to this transformation says V Sivaramakrishnan, Managing Director of Oxford University Press India (OUPI)

WHAT ARE THE EDTECH TRENDS THAT MADE A DIFFERENCE TO THE EDUCATION SYSTEM?

Digitisation is the single biggest disruptor in the education segment covering all parts of the stage. Gone are the days when manuscripts were written by hand. They are written now on word documents with pictures complementing content. The young learners take to digitisation and digital inputs like nobody else. For them, it’s been a journey. Technology or digital innovation disrupts and takes you to the next level. So, data affordability, data reach, and mobile penetration where 9/10 new Internet users access the medium through mobile is rising. If you take the total delivery cycle from creation to curation to distribution, digitisation has been the single biggest innovator on all these fronts because in a non-digital world, curation means recreation. So far, if you look at the digital distribution side, it has been homes and commercial establishments that got connected. I envisage the next big wave will be educational institutions, hospitals and public healthcare facilities. More and more primary, secondary and private schools will come under this umbrella. Students have been consuming digital content but only a very small percentage in the classrooms. Most of it has been happening outside the classroom through surfing and printing out worksheets.

I think that access will be there at schools now.

WITH DIGITISATION, HAS THE ROLE OF TEACHERS CHANGED?

We genuinely believe in the important role of the teachers in delivering content to students. This is even more crucial in the K-12 segment than it is in higher education because young adult learners have the ability to self learn. But K-12 learners have to be guided. The teacher is the focal point because concepts don’t get cleared automatically and for K-12, they need to be taught. Keeping that in mind, the role of the teacher and books remains pre-eminent. Digital devices and digital content are not going to replace the books anytime soon.

WHAT'S THE EFFECT OF E-READING ON YOUNG LEARNERS?

There are multiple studies done by Microsoft Corporation and Harvard University covering attention span, depth of learning and distraction, not counting the medical part of research that is the effect on eyes, development of the brain, and cognitive skills among children to name a few. It is very clear that depending entirely on digital learning is not the solution. In fact, it will be a disaster if you move to digital-only model. Digital as a supplement has a huge impact and that is different across various segments—for primary education, it is relatively lesser but for middle and secondary education, it is a lot more. Curent research suggests that the attention plan of students is getting lower. In terms of depth of learning—a book allows you to annotate and make notes. Kindle, for example, is a good disruptor. It is trying to get the format as close to books with white paper, and the flat and scrolling pattern is exactly like when you turn a page. So, books are going to stay but digital is a key supplement across content creation and delivery.