The students in Nepal had a chance to see computers, television and laboratory only many years after information technology became worldwide.
Curious as students are, many of them used to cluster around computers, television sets and information technology gadgets for the first time and used to ask many questions to their teachers. This was a new topic for the teachers as well.
Gone are those days when such devices used to generate awe in community schools. The use of information technology in the teaching-learning process and its access has become mandatory and commonplace in the urban areas of the country these days.
These information communication tools have now become widespread and the community schools even in rural areas are adopting it in growing numbers. The situation has become such that the teaching process itself will be incomplete without the aid of information and communication technology, thanks to modernization, increasing awareness among the parents and students and the growing interest and investment of the state in this sector.
The government has issued the ‘Work Procedure Related to the Establishment of Information and Communication Technology Laboratory in Community Schools, 2076′ for the promotion of ICT in teaching-learning activities at schools. It has adopted the policy of providing grants to 1,000 schools deprived of this facility for the purchase of ICT appliances.
The Educational and Human Resource Development Centre under the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology approved the Work Procedure on November 15. It is mentioned in the work procedure that the lump sum grant at the rate of Rs 650,000 per school would be provided for the installation of information technology.
The work procedure has been issued with the goal of creating an opportunity for the development of human resources by means of information and communication technology, promoting good governance of the school, increasing the students’ access to the information and communication technology, developing and promoting the ICT infrastructure and providing basic internet facilities at school.
Centre’s director general Baburam Poudel said the work procedure has been brought for facilitating in the provision of quality education thinking that the use of information and communication technology has an important role in achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
According to him, it will also play a catalytic role in achieving the outcome commensurate with the investment in school level education.
There are 350,55 schools, including 27,728 community schools in the country. The government has implemented the concept of the ‘digital Nepal framework’ with the objective of enhancing access to services and the quality of services provided to the citizens by the state through the electronic means within the next five years for building a ‘digital Nepal’.
The expansion and use of ICT in community schools is a part of this campaign.