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Working for the British Council India, I first became involved with the SCHOLAR programme in 2003, when a decision was made to pilot the programme in 10 Delhi-based schools. Put simply, SCHOLAR provides online materials designed to promote self-paced, student-centred learning within a teacher-supported environment, with a focus on science and engineering.
The programme, which started in Scotland, is a huge success there, with 60,000 pupils from Scottish secondary schools using it regularly. I was intrigued, then, to see the impact SCHOLAR would have on teachers and pupils in India.
We knew from the outset that our greatest challenge would be to get teachers to see SCHOLAR as a tool to complement teaching and not as a technology to substitute it. So, before we started recruiting schools or students, we held a number of workshops for teachers from North India at the British Council office in New Delhi, in collaboration with Interactive University, the publisher of SCHOLAR.
Following the workshops, these teachers were given a month’s free access to the programme which, in turn, led to the identification of 10 Rashtriya Pratibha Vikas Vidyalaya (government-run schools for the gifted or, literally, National Talent Nurturing Schools) to take part in a one-month pilot at the British Council.
In January 2004, as part of this 100-hour pilot workshop, 40 students and their teachers explored SCHOLAR at the British Council’s state-of-the-art Managed Learning Zone (MLZ).
The feedback from the students was impressive, with comments such as, ‘I will never forget the concepts I have learned in these sessions,’ and even, ‘Input from teachers is not required now. The programme is well designed and has all the information.’ You’d think teachers might feel worried by the latter comment but it was reassuring that 82 per cent of the students said they would still like some sort of teacher involvement in their studying. Indeed, teachers were equally enthusiastic about the programme, with one saying, ‘The workshop will be able to reduce conventional approaches towards learning as well as teaching. Teachers will be equipped with better, more effective teaching aids.’
It was clear that SCHOLAR had been well received by schools in the pilot programme and so the next step was to launch the programme in India. I’m glad to say that, with assistance from the British Council offices in India, it was launched in October 2004.
SCHOLAR has proved to me that e-learning is truly a worldwide resource tool. The fact that the programme has been expanded to pilot schemes in England, Northern Ireland and China, with links also currently being developed with Norway, provides further proof of this.
With increasing bandwidth and broadband initiatives being introduced by the government, more and more schools in India are introducing computer-based learning. This will, hopefully, increase demand for programmes like SCHOLAR in India.
Our greatest challenge would be to get teachers to see it as a tool to complement teaching and not a technology to substitute it.
SCHOLAR is published by Interactive University and is a programme of Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh. Visit the website or further details of the SCHOLAR programme and for detailed information on the launch in India.
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