Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Table of Figures
Table No. 1..................... Standard-wise digitized content on the Online Education Repository
Table No. 2......................Chi-square test Internet at Home
Table No. 3....................Chi-square test Internet at School
Table No. 4....................Chi-square test students comprehension
Table No. 5...............................Chi-square test teachers comfort
Table No. 6......................Chi-square test teachers manual
Fig: 4.1............................ Traffic from 01st Jan to 16th Jan 2017
Fig; 4.2............................ Weekly trend of visits
Fig: 4.3............................ Percentage users by time duration visit
Content
1. Introduction............................................................................................................ 3
2. Punjab Government E-learning initiative.....................................................................3
2.1. Open education resource (OER)...........................................................................4
2.2. Infrastructure and Support in Public schools..........................................................5
3. Best international practices of E-learning.....................................................................6
3.1. India............................................................................................................... 6
3.2. Malaysia.......................................................................................................... 7
4. Analysis of current status and perception of users..........................................................7
4.1. User traffic Analysis of OER................................................................................8
4.2. Perception Survey.............................................................................................. 9
4.2.1. Relationship between Internet facility at Home and regular visit of OER...........9
4.2.2. Relationship between Internet facilities at school and regular visits of OER.....10
4.2.3. Relationship between Students comprehension and Teachers use of
Videos/simulations............................................................................................ 11
4.2.4. Other findings:..................................................................................... 11
5. Challenges and Issues............................................................................................. 12
6. Recommendations.................................................................................................. 14
Bibliography............................................................................................................. 17
1. Introduction
This transition towards the use of E-learning is riddled with many challenges in the
developing countries these include a weak IT infrastructure, lack of IT training of teachers,
expensive and slow internet connections, and physical barriers like climate, energy and
connectivity. The impacts of e-learning are multi-sectoral e.g. Economy, Society and Education.
Economic benefits of E-learning include reducing the Urban-Rural divide, production of a High-
tech workforce, transition towards a Knowledge-based economy, and increasing the productivity
(after some time lag). Societal benefits of e-learning are evident in improvement in health
especially in case of females. Education benefits of e-learning include self-learning, interactive
learning and development of higher order analytical skills (Amin 2014). This study has analyzed
the current status of the e-learning in Punjab, comparable best international practices, issues and
challenges being faced and recommendations to improve future implementation.
The current E-initiative by Punjab Government in education sector has employed a two-
pronged strategy to promote education through e-learning. Initially an open education resource
(OER) in the form of http://www.elearn.punjab.gov.pk/ has been hosted at PITB servers. This
web portal provides free digitized content of all the textbooks (classes 6-10) (Punjab 2012). The
second part of e-learn initiative concerns with infrastructure provision in the form of smart-
laboratories equipped with LCDs (Liquid Crystal Display) and tablets and training of teachers in
the use of these technologies in public schools in Punjab. According to PC-I (Planning
Commission Form No. 1) of the project the target audience is around 5-6 million students from
grade 6 to 12 annually (Punjab 2012). There are around 52,000 public schools out of which 7000
schools already have IT labs. Moreover, there are more than 400,000 permanent teachers who
have to be trained in the use of these technologies.
Punjab curriculum and Textbook development board designs the curriculum and
publishes textbooks through publishers. The initial step was taken by collaboration of Punjab
Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) and Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB)
through provision of free digitized contents of textbooks of science subjects and mathematics for
grade 9 and 10 online along with links to a number of supplementary materials. This content has
been made interactive through use of animations, simulations and videos. Moreover, audio
instruction has also been incorporated in the text through cooperation from Virtual University. In
next phase this initiative has been extended to primary and secondary level. Currently, e-Learn
Punjab is holding the repository of interactive science and math of class 6 to 10 and non-
interactive teacher guides related to grade 1 to 10. Summarized contents of this OER are given
below (Punjab 2012):
Simulation Animation Page MC
Class Videos Figures Audio in minutes
s s s Q
8 Mathematics 86 60 9 61 177 74 -
10
445 20 13 74 264 170 -
Mathematics
Teacher training has been made an essential feature of the implementation strategy. In
addition to the trainings by Directorate of Staff Development (DSD), support staff from PITB
has been engaged with the pilot schools for the purpose of training of teachers in the use of OER.
The content development has been driven by teacher feedback. E-Learn Punjab team visits the
pilot schools after summer break for 2 to 4 weeks in this regard to train the teachers and obtain
feedback on the use of digital content in their lectures. Another feature of the pilot project has
been the inclusion and participation of parents in the awareness and training of parents in the use
of the OER. Parent participation has been ensured in all the pilot schools. Moreover, USBs with
offline content have been distributed among such parents as well.
1https://open.bccampus.ca/
2http://www.whatsonweibo.com/10-hottest-chinese-online-education-companies-
2016/
primary and secondary school students3. In United States of America, Open culture is free
educational resource provider for K-12 students and their parents and teachers. It features free
video lessons/tutorials; free mobile apps; free audiobooks, e-books and textbooks, free foreign
language lessons and test prep materials4.
3.1.India
On 5th October 2011, the Indian government announced to distribute Aakash (tablet
computer) to each of Indias 220 million students 5. National Repository of Open Educational
Resources (NROER) is the main site which contains free online digitized textbooks
supplemented with audio, videos, animations, simulations, documents and interactive sessions.
The repository aims to extend its digital resources for all the school systems for all classes, all
subjects and in all languages6. Another major project eBasta has been created by the Government
of India which is a huge digital repository of schoolbooks. This portal makes school books
accessible in digital form as e-books to be read and used on tablets and laptops. Moreover, the
contents of eBasta can be customized by teachers7.
3.2.Malaysia
In October 2011, the Malaysian Ministry of Education launched a comprehensive review
of the education system in order to develop a new National Education Blueprint (MEB). One of
the many initiatives identied under the rst wave of the MEB includes the setting up of the
3 www.edupop.com.sg
4http://www.openculture.com/free_k-12_educational_resources
5http://www.akashtablet.com/
6 http://nroer.in
7http://www.ebasta.in
1BestariNet project. Bestari in Malay means smart. This project aims to provide access to a
cloud-based virtual learning platform and a high-speed connectivity to all its 10,000 public
schools (Ministry of Education, Malaysia 2014).
6000
5000
4000
2000
1000
0
42737 42739 42741 42743 42745 42747 42749 42751
42736 42738 42740 42742 42744 42746 42748 42750
(Source http://www.elearn.punjab.gov.pk/statistics.php)
The repository has been functional since October 2012, but the user traffic is low. As can
be seen in the above chart the number of daily visitors lays around 1,000, which is very low. The
number of pages visited on the other hand varies between 4,000 & 6,000 visitors per day.
Percentage users by time duration
0s-30s
5% 2%
5% 30s-2mn
9%
2mn-5mn
10% 52% 5mn-15mn
15mn-30mn
17% 30mn-1h
1h+
(Source http://www.elearn.punjab.gov.pk/statistics.php)
The number of serious users who spend more than an hour on the site is depicted by
above chart as the least percentage of 2.4%. This phenomenon is depreciative as the percentage
of users duration of visit decreases with increasing time duration. Users with cursory visit
duration of 0-30 seconds comprise the largest portion in the pie of 51.70%. If it is supposed that
serious visitors who intend to study put at least 15 or more minutes in their visit then, the
proportion of serious visitors comes down to around 12% of total visitors.
4.2.Perception Survey
The perception survey was conducted in two schools where the pilot project has been
implemented. The questions are attached at Annexure-I. Statistical analysis of the data was done
through SPSS. Since the variables were nominal Chi-square test was applied to test the
significance of the relationships.
4.2.1. Relationship between Internet facility at Home and regular visit of OER
H0 There is no relationship between Internet facilities at home with regular visits of OER
H1 There is a relationship between Internet facilities at home with regular visits of OER
Chi-Square Tests
N of Valid Casesb 39
Table No. 2 Chi-Square test Internet at Home
There is evidence of a strong relationship between Internet facility being present at home with
regular visits of OER (Chi-square = 9.416, df=1, p = 0.002 < 0.05). Therefore, we reject the H 0
hypothesis.
4.2.2. Relationship between Internet facilities at school and regular visits of OER
H0 There is no relationship between Internet facilities at school with regular visits of OER
H1 There is a relationship between Internet facilities at home with regular visits of OER
Chi-Square Tests
N of Valid Casesb 39
Table No. 3 Chi-Square test Internet at School
There is evidence of no relationship between Internet facility being present at school with regular
visits of OER (Chi-square = 5.571, df=1, p = 0.018 > 0.05). Therefore, we reject the H 1
hypothesis and accept H0 hypothesis which states that there is no relationship between internet
facilities being present at school and visiting of OER website. An inference can be drawn here
that this is probably because the students are not allowed in school hours to visit the website, as
the teacher has a tight schedule to follow.
Chi-Square Tests
N of Valid Casesb 39
Table No. 4 Chi-Square test students understanding
There is evidence of a strong relationship between students understanding of concepts with the
teachers use of videos/simulations in lectures (Chi-square = 9.4, df=1, p = 0.009 < 0.05).
Therefore, we reject the H0 hypothesis.
5.2.Digital Divide
According to the statistics issued by IMF, currently only 17.6% of Pakistans population
has access to internet which is significant and depicts the digital divide that marks our society
(Internet world stats 2016). It is also significant to note that the level of digitization even in areas
housing selected 8 model high schools in Punjab where smart labs have been established stands
at 25-30%. This digital gap is one of the most important challenges e-learn program faces in the
long run.
5.3.Sustainability
The pilot project is being funded through School Education Department (SED) and The
Department for International Development (DFID) but any expansion in the future would require
a large budget layout from the Punjab Government. The price of each tablet is around Rs.
10,000. Moreover, issues of energy shortage, maintenance cost, and up-gradation on regular
basis challenge the sustainability of this project.The pilot project is being run by PITB, upon
insistence of SED. How the expansion of e-learn initiative is brought about remains vague since
8https://elearningindustry.com/e-learning-challenges-and-solutions
PITB does not have necessary human resource for effective maintenance and monitoring of the
system.
5.4.Student-Teacher Motivation
E-learning seeks to extend the boundaries of learning process beyond the four walled
classrooms. It reduces the traditional role and authority of teachers (Tearle 2001). This pushes
the teachers to move out of their comfort zones. Likewise, it requires students to adapt a role
much more active than the traditional model being practiced for decades.
5.5.Content Development
Currently, only the students of secondary level can fully avail this service, the classes
above primary have also been provided with few subjects and the work on the content for higher
secondary classes is underway. This task is being done by a team at PITB, none of which is an
education specialist. Although, the officials at PITB claim that they seek approval and assistance
from the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board, but the real extent of this cooperation is
unknown.
5.6.Time Management
No matter how interesting interactive sessions are for the students, it does create time
management problems for teachers since they have to strike a balance between ICT based
teaching and traditional lectures (Archambault 2010). Moreover, it also makes it difficult for
teachers to cover their syllabus in given time frame for the term and final examination of the
students (Mumtaz 2011). A teacher expressed how cumbersome this task is by citing that he was
expected to teach in classroom, hold these interactive sessions, go on dengue duty as well as
polio campaign.
Surprisingly, there is a very small fraction of population of students which is aware of the
ICT interventions in the field of education. This fact is evident by the fact that the number of
visitors to the OER website averages around 1,000 per day 9. The PITB team spearheading the e-
learn project acknowledged it as a weakness and ascribed it to scant resources of the government.
6. Recommendations
1. Teacher training is done by Directorate of Staff Development, which provides both pre-
service and in-service training to teachers. Although, computer literacy is a part of this
training, education about OER is not included in these trainings. Therefore, it is
recommended that a module comprising OER and e-learning may be included in these
trainings.
2. The digital divide cannot be eliminated altogether, not in the short run anyways. Initially
areas where internet connectivity is available should be prioritized for implementation of
e-learn.punjab. Moreover, a project for distribution of tablets akin to India should also be
considered. Indigenous production of tablets should be explored to make these tablets
cost-effective.
3. School education department has to invest in its Human resource in ICT field in order to
make the implementation of this project successful. Due to lack of expertise SED has
been reluctant to take up this responsibility. Moreover, in the long run it would not be
possible for PITB to implement and monitor the project as they lack the required HR
strength for this purpose.
4. The pace of the project has been slow. The data generation has not been utilized either for
data mining or analytics because there are no Big Data experts available either with PITB
or SED. Most of the projects initiated by the Punjab Government are in their initial stages
of data gathering, and the time has arrived that stages of data mining and data analytics
be explored for informing policy and decision making of the Government.
Q2: Why the outline is limited to only maths and science subjects and does not include other
subjects like IT, urdu , Islamiat, Social studies?
Q3: On which criteria do you select schools for your pilot project: implementation of
multimedia classrooms?
Q4: Does your team encounter reluctance from school administration while planning a visit for
IT training of staff and students?
Q5: Are the CDS , USBs and wi fi provided to all schools or only those under pilot project?
Q6: Is the crowd sourcing of videos or reading material being done? If yes, how many feedbacks
have you received?
Q9: Do you hire content developers, freelancers of web designing and graphics for this e learning
project?
Q10: Any future plans of upgrading this project to high school (grade 11,12) level?
Q11: Why only urdu stories are available on this site and not English?
Q14: Is Punjab curriculum and textbook board development team involved in making of this
project?
Q17: Throw some light on customized lesson planning project of this site?
Q18: Why marketing of this great initiative has been so slow? as many of the students and
teachers are not aware of it?