Mangalore, Jan 28 (DHNS): Dakshina Kannada district, having carved a niche for itself in the education map has now received a feather on its cap by grabbing 15 Technology in Education Awards conferred by Intel Technologies in association with the Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyana (SSA) for the year 2009-10.
The Intel Technology in Education Award is conferred to identify and encourage the efforts of those government schools and individuals who have excelled in teaching and learning computer education in the State. Among 38 awards which are conferred to three schools, 15 teachers, 15 student groups and five block resource persons, maximum 15 awards have been received by the teachers, students and schools of DK district.
Informing Deccan Herald about the recent achievement, District Institute of Education and Training (DIET) Education Department lecturer Gopinath Kalbhag who is playing a key role in implementing computer based education in government schools of the district, said as many as nine teachers, five student groups and one school have received the award in the respective categories.
“The awards are given after scrutinising and evaluating each applicant by a team consisting of the members of Intel and DSERT. The awardees have been selected based on few criteria including practical knowledge level of the students, project works undertaken etc,” he said, adding that awards won by the district schools illustrate the computer literacy level among the children in the district schools.
District shows progress
The effective implementation of computer learning in the government and aided schools of the district is bearing the fruit now, with all the high school students having created their e-mail IDs under ICT programmes and keeping a giant step forward in the field of technology based education.
“The rural students are quite interested in computer learning which is visible as they efficiently involve in the computer based projects and surveys,” said Kalbhag. The Head Master of award winning Government High School Pavur Prashant Kumar informed that the students in Pavur School have been carrying out various community based, curriculum related projects with the computer assistance. “Despite the increased number of students, we try to give individual attention to make them computer savy. The award has been a moral boost,” he acclaims. With the years passing by, government schools of Dakshina Kannada have been making a slow but steady move in imparting computer education to the students.
Declaring that there has been a marginal growth in the attendance level of the students due to computer classes, DIET Principal Philomena Lobo said, the students in the government schools make it a point not to miss the computer classes, thus attend the school promptly avoiding absence which is a welcome change.
Award winners
School category: Government High School Pavur.
Tecahers’ category: Geetha Kumari (Sri N S Government Pre-university College Haleyangadi), Rajeshwari (Government Urdu High School Bunder), Jyothi (Government High School Krishnapura), Lalitha B S (Government PU College, Carstreet), Jagadish B S (Aladangadi), Vinaya Prabha (Government High School Baikamapadi), Suresh Nayak (Government High School Panjikal), Poornima Nayak (Government PU College Puttur), Jyothi Juliet D’Souza (Government High School Bangadi).
Students’ Category: Students group from Government PU College Carstreet, Sri N S Government PU College Haleangadi, Government High School Kokkaradi, Government High School Kinnikambala, Government High School Kadeshivalaya.