Telecommunication failed to educate youth: Expert

Two books to train special children released on the occasion

Secretary to government of India and member (finance), Space Commission and Atomic Energy Commission, V V Bhat lamented that television and telecommunication system lag behind in utilising their concepts effectively in education.

He was speaking at the national seminar on ‘Tele Assessments and Intervention for Persons with Communication Disorders’ at All India Institute of Speech and Hearing here on Thursday. He said that tele communication is a means of education and facilitates delivery of range of subjects in different grades.

Mentioning about the flexibility of subjects, he said, open university concept was shaped following the system adopted in London. He added, though telecommunication has been a vital aspect of various systems, it has not been successfully implemented. It is not functioning as required in society and fails to educate youth even, while tele education for disabled remains a distant dream.

Bhat regreted that disability continues to receive inadequate attention from society. Education to parents, family, society is as important as educating the disabled.

Elaborating on the World Disabled Report of 2011, he said, for the first time a new dimension to disability was given as even old age has been considered as a disability.

“Any shortage in faculty, any damage in capacity and any partial disability fall under disability according to the report. The report has not limited disability to its specific conditions,” he added.

Peculiar limitations

Delving into the education system in country, he said, it has peculiar limitations. Knowing more and more is considered to be education while going high in educational qualification is believed to be hallmark of development, which is really not. He said, progress should be across the board and should not be satisfied with single subject speciality. It sometimes even hampers abilities to gain jobs.

Explaining the tele medicine system, he mentioned that 380 nodal centres were connected to major hospitals after its launch and shortage of doctors and teachers was a major drawback of the system. The concept introduced in Ladakh, Lakshadweep and other states where telecommunication had more hurdles achieved 75 per cent of success rate. Lack of commitment of doctors and their unwillingness to sit for the panel of tele medicine hindered the system.

Observing the limitations of the tele medicine concept developed by a company, he said, it missed two major aspects. Classification of diseases and absence of recorded documents. He said, the systems are not as per convenience of patients and psychology of organisation is bad.

Former director of AIISH, Mysore N Ratna stressed that government has not responded positively for the experiments related to tele medicine. Though services and posts were created in very few states under the system, no adequate remunerations were given.
Books ‘Train your child-level 2 (Hindi)’ and ‘Train your child in pre-academic skills (English)’ were released.

Director of AIISH S R Savithri and head of department of Centre for Rehabilitation and Education Through Distance Mode (CREDM) R Manjula were present.