IT initiatives in education ‘A case study for J&K State’

Education is one of the most debatable topics in all over the world and so it should be. With limited time and limited resources the nation's future and its people depend on the efficiency of schools, colleges and universities. The world is undergoing a revolution in ICT that has tremendous implications for the current and future social and economic situation of all countries of the world. The application and use of ICTs, have tremendous potential for improvements in every sector including education. J&K state in India have a literacy rate much below the national average of 64.8%. People residing in hilly and rural areas of J & K state are not benefited especially in the field of education. A growing number of teachers are now beginning to realise the potential of ICT and all schools and teachers should be aware of what can now be achieved. In this context the authors made an attempt to study the existing scenario of education sector of the state particularly the use of technological tools in teaching learning process. For this purpose, a questionnaire was designed for getting feedback from the students with an objective to supplement the information already collected by having a visit to each school. The data so collected was analysed separately for government schools as well for public and private schools. The analysis carried out shows certain drastic differences in these different categories of schools.