Need to address challenges on priority

Education lays the foundation for the future, nurtures the citizens of tomorrow. Hence there is need to address the challenges on priority. Quality education needs to be taken care of. School curriculum for the K-12 segment needs to be updated to cater to the skills required for 21st century education. This calls for training of teachers to provide creative and innovative learning environments by integrating technology into education. Teacher training courses need to be revitalized. Content improvement, technology integrated delivery mechanism, assessments and monitoring of learning outcomes by the teachers should be part of program. Digital divide emerging due to ICT in education needs to be bridged. Technology innovations should focus on catering to children in the lower socio-economic strata of society to keep pace with technological advances. Education for employability has to be a priority. Training graduates/PG’s to be employed by the industries is important. Private-public partnership will help mission education. Industry and the academia must cooperate to develop technologies and integrate efforts to provide skill development for employability.  ICT should emerge as a major driving force by harnessing resources such as schools on wheels, mobile education, tablets, edu-satellites, virtual classrooms and video conferencing to bridge the rural-urban divide.