E-teaching, that is, using modern technologies like digital textbooks and tablets to improve and expand education, increasingly seems to be the answer for everything that?s wrong with education. Where today?s learning process is one-size fits all, interactive software promises to personalise it; where textbooks are boring and horribly limited, digital content through tablets promises to stimulate interest. No wonder, then, that libraries across the globe are digitising their bookshelves, Akhilesh Yadav is proceeding to fulfil his pledge of free tablets, and big capital and start-ups across the country are cashing in on the promise of interactive educative software. However, as Ashish Dhawan of Central Square Foundation notes, the impact has been limited with only a marginal increase in results. Part of the reason is the execution. Tablets and computers are handed out without any educative content and training of teachers. The one-laptop-per-child policy in Peru showed little improvement in results (in spite of everyone receiving laptops) mainly because of the absence of relevant content. Whereas other attempts like the Rocketship Education programme for low-income students in California, where bundling the technology with the right content and proper training of the staff was carried out, have exhibited phenomenal success.
Otherwise, the bad news for technology enthusiasts is that technology is not a silver bullet for expanding education. The nation may have the money, the tablets, the software and the entrepreneurs, but these can never rectify the intrinsic faults of an ineffective bureaucracy or weak state institutions. Moreover, technology has its own limitations. For K-12 education, good teachers continue to matter more than a good laptop or tablet, and with the advent of easy digital content (read movies, music and games) and Facebook, technology opens as many avenues for distraction as it opens for better learning.
