TECHNOLOGY AND TEACHERS

by Goolbai Gunasekara

Technology advances daily. Every single day some young innovator is discovering a method aimed at making life easier. These discoveries are important enough for big Companies to pay millions of dollars to the discoverer when buying his patent or a few thousand dollars if the patent is not earth shaking. A young Indian girl of ten in the USA won $25.000/ as prize money for inventing a water purifier method.

A brilliant Sri Lankan engineer continues to make millions by providing a clever innovation to one of the world’s largest car manufacturers. This makes it clear that a knowledge of IT is mandatory in schools these days but one maddening problem rears its head. Where do we find the teachers who are trained in teaching so VITAL a subject?

In Sri Lanka we annually talk of ‘upgrading’ and ‘changing’ syllabuses in schools. The new Budget of 2019 has actually spent millions on upgrading a few selected schools to bring them into “modem educational systems” to quote the Minister of Education. Let us hope it works.

What is very noticeable however, is that nobody talks of upgrading teachers. They talk of employing 1,500 trained personnel and another 5,000 graduate teachers but where and by whom are they being trained? Nothing is said about this. And yet the same untrained (usually) teachers are sent to the outstations to impart a non- existent knowledge which is the result of the present poor educational policy these many decades past. The present policy needs to be consolidated before we talk ambitiously of further technological instruction in schools.

Of course, there are exceptions, but I am not talking exception here. I am talking of the very real and immediate problem of giving our Sri Lankan youngsters the tools to live in a world that they can understand. In short, they have to be technologically savvy. ALL of them. Not just a few. And it should not seem to be just a political gimmick.

For the person who has not had instruction in IT at an early age, the ‘new’ world is a nightmare. I give my own example. A few years ago, I had to travel alone to the USA and since I had to change planes in the UK I decided to spend one night in London catching up with friends who lived near the airport. My hotel was for stopover tourists. The rooms were small but well equipped. There was no personal service.

“How do I get a cup of coffee?” I asked bewildered. “Everything is right here for you to use, Madam. Coffee machines, an electric iron if you need it. You press this button on the phone if you are making a foreign call,’ etc. I was totally at sea. I had never used a coffee machine – something that is so basic to most people, so I spent the entire 24 hours having to go down to the restaurant if I wanted coffee. It was embarrassing to have to tell the smart young girl who took me to my room that I did not have the faintest idea how to manipulate gadgets that her generation took for granted.

But I can be excused. I was not born into that technologically advanced age. I was well into middle age (whom am I fooling?) virtually old age before I saw my first mobile phone. A parent brought one into my office. It was a large instrument. Nothing like the smart phones of today. And yet I was enchanted with the whole concept of phones – not faxes though.

I quickly learnt how to use one. The school acquired a Fax Machine of course and shortly after, a Photocopy machine. Office work was flowing along faster and more accurately than ever before. Before hiring any office assistant, one did not ask as was previously so necessary, “What is your typing speed?”

One asked “Are you Computer literate?” Somehow I struggled to learn the basics.

Now how do we tie all this in with our youngsters. Teachers are soon going to have to use computers and smart boards to lecture. Kids are going to use iPads instead of textbooks. A paperless society is round the corner. I cannot see the present government school teachers coping.

I, for one, regret the passing of books. Nothing compares to the thrill of opening a new book and its fresh smell. Even a textbook had its allure. The modern student is soon not going to be interested in anything as mundane as a textbook. Questions will be typed and then a printout will be submitted to the teacher for correction.

In most advanced Universities hand- written answers are not accepted. The student has to know how to use computers. So the art of writing nicely will soon become obsolete. In the early days of my teaching career I remember telling my pupils, “Good handwriting can make the difference between getting a First or Second Class at University level.” I believed it too.

I can cry when I think of the hours I spent making pupils practice good handwriting like I did in school. What is that skill used for nowadays except to sign my name? The modern students have far more to absorb. My fear is that Sri Lanka is going to lag behind in the teaching of these skills to our young pupils.

Will the Government please begin training ALL University students as well as all present teachers in the methods needed for “Teaching Through Technology” and since it seems as if the Government is taking a forward step in this regard I can only hope they have the ability to implement these attractive sounding advances in the teaching of non-academic skills.

Why do have I this nagging feeling that it is all going to end in the usual Department of Education’s ineptitude and inefficiency? My trust in the powers that be are obviously nil and who can blame me?

(Excerpted from The Principal Factor, an article first published in the Lanka Market Digest)