XII Five Year Plan (2012-17)

3.1 Objectives, Targets and Strategies

Objectives

 To evolve strategies to become world leaders in providing highly skilled manpower for Information, Electronics, and Communication Technology (IECT) sector.

 Plan, assess and prepare a framework for manpower development by assessing the present and future needs of the industry including emerging areas in IECT related disciplines.

 To examine the existing infrastructure and constraints for developing high quality manpower and to recommend measures to meet the needs of the industry in the global perspective including strategies for continuing education for professionals.

 To study the role of new educational technologies and to recommend modalities for their integration in to the present educational/training system. To suggest measures necessary to improve teaching of non- IECT subjects by using computers and the internet for all students.

 To assess the impact of IECT sector and suggest measures to improve use of IECT in various fields for increasing productivity, bringing in socio-economic development and services like e-medicine, e-education, e-entertainment especially to the rural areas.

 E-learning initiatives to supplement the traditional mode of learning. Promote proliferation of usage of IECT in learning across the full range of academic disciplines with intention to enhance the learning outcome, and providing platform for one to one, one to many, and many to many collaboration.

 Identification of Indian needs and accordingly development of relevant tools, standards and technologies for e-content. Localization of available IECT technology for e-learning to suite Indian needs in terms of language, culture and learning requirement of differently able as well as disadvantaged segments for inclusive education.

 To scale capacity building with foundation and life skills being integrated both in formal and non-formal programmes of learning at all levels.

3.2 Targets & Strategies

The ongoing schemes would be consolidated and enhanced in its scope to meet the objectives. The following are the directions in which activities/projects/schemes could be initiated and pursued in the next five years which could also provide continuity between XI and XII Plan Periods; learning from the experiences gained so far:

(a) The Information Security Education and Awareness Project which is aimed at generation of quality human resource in the area of information security at various levels viz. from certificate level to doctoral level, training of faculty, creating awareness on information security in the country, etc. is scheduled to be completed by March 2012. DIT is in the process of working out a strategy for further carrying this project and its benefits in an integrated fashion, and also to institutionalize the mechanism so that the system continues beyond the project duration, and also to evolve future strategies based on the emerging needs of the academia, industry and the masses at large. Such a mechanism is proposed to be evolved and the implementation of the same would be carried out during this five years period.

(b) There are several cutting-edge technology areas which are emerging. The market requirement and characteristics are continuously modified based on both emerging technology and change in customer needs. The NASSCOM Report entitled ‘NASSCOM PERSPECTIVE 2020: Transform Business, Transform India’ has identified a set of emerging technology areas which would transform the business. This inter-alia include Artificial Intelligence, Multi-core programming, Cloud Computing, Biometric Identification, Ubiquitous Computing, collaborative online interaction, Pervasive IT Security, intelligent information gathering and processing, flexible IT and Green IT etc. This list could be taken as a starting point for identifying potential emerging areas and launching HR initiatives associating all the stakeholders’ viz. academia, industry/industry associations. (c) One of the key issues that would emerge is handling e-Waste in the coming years.

We would need to train human resource to develop systems to handle disposal of e-Waste through a reverse supply change.

(d) DOEACC as a part of skill development initiatives in the area of IECT would develop a suitable skill testing and certification framework which would be closely linked with the industry requirement and industry associations. Government of India has a plan to set up National Qualification Framework under National Skill Development Policy evolving standards, testing and certification of various skill levels. DOEACC initiatives could be a part of this national effort in collaboration with relevant Sector Skill Councils .

(e) The Government of India is laying emphasis on promotion of IT Hardware and Electronics Manufacturing Industry. A study on the manpower requirement on this segment has made several recommendations regarding the manpower initiatives that are to be taken up. In line with these, it is proposed to launch various short term and long term courses in the emerging areas like Electronics Products Design & Production Technology covering various branches of Electronics viz. consumer electronics, medical electronics, communications, etc. There is also need to address the requirement of quality faculty in this area as this

(f) Requirement of trained human resource for application of IT in other sectors like: Automobiles, Construction, etc. this will not only increase the usage of IT in other traditional sectors but also help those sectors to grow further with the increased efficiency of resource management due to use of IT and sector specific IT applications.

(g) Requirement of evolving technologies for a new paradigm in pedagogy, assessment and evaluation, utilizing the potentials of IECT, through a national faculty development programme (FDP), empowering faculty to be learner–centric and to use enabling technologies as support, leading to a professional certification.

3.3 DIT’s Skill Development initiatives in IECT

The National Skill Development Policy announced by the Government of India to take advantage of the demographic dividends (viz. 55% of the Indian are expected to be under the age of 25 while in the developed world 60% of the population is expected to be old) and spur in all inclusive growth has set a target of creating 500 million skilled persons by 2022 win an emphasis on inclusivity so as to deal with the divides of gender, rural/urban, organized/unorganized, employment and traditional/contemporary workplace. The DIT has been listed as a part of these skill development initiatives and has been given a target to train 10 million persons by the year 2022. In line with this, detailed project proposals are being worked out to obtain the approval of the Competent Authority. The proposal involves the following components:

As a part of skill development initiatives, the capacities of DOEACC and C- DAC would be enhanced to generate 10 million skilled manpower by the year 2022 starting from diploma level right up to doctoral level and in line with the emerging industry/market/society needs. The Central Government scheme for providing financial assistance for setting up of ICT Academy in each State/UT under PPP mode by respective State Governments/UTs along with industry/industry associations has been proposed. These IT Academies would help in improving the quality of the faculty in various colleges in Tier II and Tier III cities.

3.4 E-Learning initiatives

a) Content adaptation (including personalized learning). Creation of high quality interactive simulation environment like (i) Impact of plastic on environment in long span (iii) simulation for Indian environment, culture and language (iv) Global warming (v) Effect of population increase (vi) Online Labs (Olabs) for School Lab Experiments etc. M-Learning has to be made de-facto part of e-Learning, bringing in mobile as part of e-Learning environment to increase the reach and penetration of e- Learning.

b) Cloud solutions for e-Learning to enhance the use of advanced web based tools at affordable cost for scheduling, project management, documentation, multimedia production tools in different stages of e-Learning environment is becoming important. Accessible Learning model through e-Learning for “Differently Able Children” (Work could be carried out closely with domain experts in the institutes like NIMHANS, Bangalore, NIMH, Hyderabad) etc. Design and Development of Service Oriented Architecture based Standards Compliant e- Learning Framework with Personalized Learning Features to support Peer-to-Peer Learning.

c) Open Educational Resources (OER) – use of ICT for locating right content. Focus should be set towards quality, standards, accreditation of e-Learning courses and

industry acceptance to enable the learner to gain employment opportunities. Extensive Groups working in the area of open source and open content will play a crucial role in e-Learning in the future.

d) Content Authoring Tool for Indian languages as well as for the creation of Content for the differently abled. Creation and formation of e-Learning ontology with Artificial Intelligence.

e) U-Learning framework utilizing power of wireless technologies and cloud computing. Build effective game environment for learning for specific target groups. ICT and DTH services can play a vital role in bringing services accessible to learners at any locations. Building a content creation framework and structure to enable high degree of personalization and adaptation. Standards would be worked out for achieving unification of content & platform and to take care of various available bandwidths along with their limitations.

f) The efficacy of e-Learning, virtual class, & virtualization of Learning has not yet been fully understood and the potential of these has not been fully emphasised and exploited. Collaborative e- learning technologies need to be explored in detail. There is a need to setup virtual university for IT/Computer Science by effectively leveraging the potential of e-Learning methodology. The tools/technology built/developed now will find immediate use when looked at along with the National Mission in Education through ICT and the ICT@schools programmes of MHRD. g) For effective private participation, Government could help by establishing quality

standards, establishing accreditation arrangements and wide dissemination of information.