The Government is fully cognizant of the disruption in learning of children due to the pandemic and a decision has been taken to provide internet packs at affordable rates to students. The contours of the plan are still being worked out. This was announced by Chairman of Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports, Dr Vinay Sahasrabudhe at CII Education Conference on Wednesday. Dr Sahasrabudhe was inaugurating the two-day virtual conference titled “Innovations in Learning” and was responding to a request from Chairman of CII Education Council Dr BVR Mohan Reddy for urgent steps to ensure that the education of children did not suffer due to lack of digital connectivity.

Emphasising that innovation alone was of no use unless it was taken to its logical conclusion and combined with incubation to convert into useful products and services, Dr Sahasrabudhe exhorted CII to play a catalytic role in sifting useful innovation from redundant innovation. It was organisations like CII, he said, which could contribute in multiple ways in finding out how to overcome the challenges posed by the pandemic.

Dr Reddy, who is also the Chairman of IIT Hyderabad and the Executive Chairman of Hyderabad-based IT major Cyient, in his remarks stressed on the need for low-cost devices for children and reskilling of teachers so that they were able to effectively impart the skills of the future to children.

Ms Radhika Bharat Ram, Co-Chair of CII Education Council and Vice-Chairperson of The Shri Ram Schools, talked about the CII Catch-up Campaign which is creating awareness among schools about the need to focus on foundational skills of children. As part of the campaign, CII has been conducting sessions with its member companies and the schools run through CSR foundations, on ensuring that when children come back to school, teachers devote enough time on bringing them up to speed on where they had left.

The two-day conference which is the fifth in the series of annual school conferences which CII has been conducting, has several national as well as international partners such as the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), the National Book Trust (NBT), OECD, Unicef, IBM and Cyient.

30 June 2021

New Delhi