Digital Transformation of Education policy prepared by stakeholders
A policy for the Digital Transformation of Education has been prepared by the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) and the Education Ministry.
The policy has been made public and has been developed after three workshops conducted by Education Ministry and ICTA. Education administrators, professionals, school principals, school teachers, heads of vocational training institutes, professors, lecturers, higher educational officials, industry specialists and others participated in these workshops.
They discussed the current issues faced by the Education Ministry and schools, universities and Vocational Training Institutes.
The following have been identified as overall objectives of the Policy for the Digital Transformation of Education:
1.
Digital Transformation in Education:
Education, be it primary, secondary or tertiary, is disrupted but at the same time, benefits from the digital transformation. Education keeps in pace and changes with the advanced developments taking the best use of the new technologies, trends and applications.
Preparing for Future Challenges:
Students receive an updated and advanced education that trains them to take the challenges of the contemporary job market-- locally and internationally. They should always possess the necessary digital skills better than or in par with students from any part of the world. “Hands-on” Digital Education for All: The Digital Education received by the students should not be purely a theoretical one. Every student, irrespective of the study stream he/she follows, should be given adequate opportunities to have hands-on experience to develop the digital skills within the curricula, as a core part of it. Digital education should not be taken without the practical component. The digital skills training part not be an additional or supplementary part to the curricula. Depending on the type of the course, always more than 10% of the time should be allocated to build digital skills of students within curricula.
Keeping in Pace with Industry: The teaching or academic staff at every school, university and institute, should be professionally qualified and experienced in teaching ICT related subjects. They should keep pace with the new technological developments, industry trends and frequently advance their teaching methods to incorporate them in the education process so students receive a complete, advanced and up-to-date education.
Digital Environment for Students: Every school, university, higher education institute, vocational training institute should have the ideal environmental to be conducive to student centric digital education. They should be fully equipped with computer labs so students can be trained and given adequate and equal opportunities. Resources for Digital Education: Students at primary, secondary or tertiary levels, should be able to find the necessary resources for their studies such as books, journals, videos etc., at affordable costs. The resources should be of high quality and up to date. Learning Management Systems: Every school, university, higher education institute, vocational training institute should use Learning Management Systems (LMSs) to the best in the process of education. Self-Learning: Digital Education cannot and not be constrained to the class rooms, but students are encouraged to do self-studies to improve their knowledge in the core subjects and other related subject areas and to be competent digital professionals of the future.
Soft-Skills Development: A critical component in digital education, that always goes hand-in-hand with hard skills are soft skills including but not limited to in the area of language, PR and marketing, negotiation, presentation etc. should be given due recognition and cultivated in students during the process of their digital education. Management of Information Systems: Fully pledged Management Information Systems should be used for the administration of every school, university, higher education institute and vocational education institute instead of conducting the tasks manually.
Digital Administration Skills: Administrators of every school, university, higher education institute and vocational training institute should be conversant with the digital skills necessary to handle the systems and applications they need to handle in their day-to-day operations.
Online Learning: In case of a situation where the students are prevented from learning activities the typical manner, digital education systems be best used to provide them the learning activities they miss; irrespective of their geographical locations, socioeconomic conditions of their families etc. Government, with the true spirit of ‘free education’ should provide the infrastructure facilities as much as possible, enabling students having continuous and regular education, as close as possible to the traditional class-room education irrespective of their backgrounds.
13. Teachers’ Skills: The teaching and academic staff, including trainers and teaching assistants be fully conversant with digital technologies and systems they use as teaching tools. Also they are fully equipped with the necessary digital tools and applications, be them hardware or software, for teaching purposes.
14. Students’ Skills: All students must be competent in handling digital tools for their distance education purposes.
15. Security in Digital Space: The students should be provided the security in the digital space by understanding the vulnerabilities by teachers and authorities. They should be provided with the necessary safeguards.
16. Informed Parents: Parents should be well aware of the needs of the Digital Education and build a conducive environment at home. They should support children the best in the studies.
17. Sustainable Digitalisation: The digitalisation process in every school, university, higher education institute and vocational training institute should be sustainable and environment friendly. The e-waste should be properly managed.
18. Software Use: The software used by each school, university, higher education institute and vocational training institute both for learning activities and management should be useful, relevant, up-to date and licenced for use--Unless they are open source products.
19. Priority for the Transformation Effort: Digitalisation of the Education receives the priority it rightfully deserves in the decision making process. All authorities and stakeholders, including policy makers and implementers, should consider it their prime duty to contribute towards achieving the objectives of digitalisation of education.