We live in a digital era, which brings distance closer and makes everything fast and simple. A young country like India can progress only with technology. Digital illiteracy will be a barrier for the development process of our country in this 21st century, as it will prevent the marginalized from making contributions for the development of our country.

Why Aakash? It’s Need in India.

It will be a big mistake if we do not empower the students with digital literacy. It will badly affect thepolitical and economic stability of the country in the years to come. The financially sound population will have resources that will give them access to the digital world and that will help them in moving forward. But the poor and the marginalized will have no access to the digital world and will be left behind. Aakash is considered to be access device, but not a substitute for the content of education. The digital world is an ocean of knowledge and today most of the educational institutes and students make use of the digital world to prepare notes and projects and this has helped them improving their learning.

So due to any reason if students are not able to gain access to the digital world, the end result may be that the already marginalized and poorer sections will be pushed into deeper sufferings which will worsen their life and hinder the development process of the country.

The evolution of Aakash

The Aakash tablet is a result of the hard efforts of National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology. The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology was included in the 11th five year plan to enhance education through the adoption of technology as a medium. The important feature of this scheme was to provide each student from the poor and marginalized communities with a computer.

But the idea has a disadvantage , that with the price of the computer, even if it was provided it can be provided only to a few students. Thus there will still be large number of students without computers as they will be excluded. If at all subsidy is given, it will be very low and will still exclude students from the poor and marginalized who are eligible. This had led to thinking which resulted in the birth of Aakash.

The team that developed Aakash

Talents from various IITs and other private companies were utilized for the development of the tablet. The main objective behind developing Aakash was to match the resources that were available with the requirement of a low cost computer that will serve the needs of poor and marginalized students. The Aakash which was recently introduced was a result of two years of effort from the IITs, especially IIT Kanpur, IIT Jodhpur and IIScs. Many private companies were also involved in the development of Aakash.

Criticisms

There were many criticisms behind the development of Aakash and many of them laughed at the idea of a low cost device that will provide access to the digital world. The Ministry of Human Resource acted as an umbrella for the elite technology education institutions in the country to work in corporation with private companies to think out of the box and develop a device that will revolutionize the education system of India.

How Aakash will help Indian students?

The device is mainly intended to provide easy access for the students from the poor and marginalizedsections to the digital world. There is a long way to go in terms of developing quality content for education purpose. Now the government has made an initial step towards gaining access to the digital world. Now it is the turn of the academic world to create quality content for the education sector in India.

Many of the FMCG companies have introduced Rs 1 sachet, which is targeted to penetrate into the customers at the rural areas and it was a successful move. More over the private mobile communication companies have come up with low cost plans which have given the rural public access to the communication network, successfully empowering them. Aakash was also launched with the same idea which will empower millions of Indians in the rural area.

According to Tuli, an executive from Datawind, they expect that Aakash will be accepted by the people in India as they have accepted mobile phones. He is of the belief that if the Indian parents thinks that Aakash can give their children a better chance for getting quality education, then they will surely go for buying one. He says that the dream of every parent is to get better education for their children and with Aakash the students can make use of the internet to get access to study materials and content. The government officials has said that the government is committed in ensuring that the students receives the device will have access to the internet.

A leapfrog technology

It is quite obvious that the students from the poorer sections who own Aakash might have never used a computer or will never own a computer. This can be considered as a leapfrog technology, which will explore the areas where the conventional technologies have not. With this the students will be able to join the global network which they have never done before. The Aakash will help students to gain access to the world’s largest educational content, the YouTube. It will also help students to get access to other educational content such as Khan Academy.

Substituting computers

The Aakash will help students across India to perform tasks that is done by other students with the help of computers. This includes preparing presentations using power point, creating word documents, browsing the internet for study materials etc.

So now the Aakash is launched, and students have an easy access to the internet. Now it is the duty of the academic fraternity create quality content for improving the education sector in India so that Indian students will be in par with any foreign students.