Context

• The Minister of Human Resource Development launched Operation Digital Board to leverage technology in order to boost quality education in the country.
• It is a revolutionary step which will make the learning as well as the teaching process interactive and popularize flipped learning as a pedagogical approach.

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• Digital board will be introduced all over the country in government and government aided schools from class 9th onwards as well as in higher education institutions.
• The process will begin from the coming session of 2019.
• ODB aims at converting a class room into a digital class room and in addition to availability of e-resources at any time and at any place to students
• It will also help in provisioning of personalised adaptive learning as well as intelligent tutoring by exploiting emerging technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & Data Analytics.

Need

• The Union Minister said that the biggest challenge facing education sector in the country is maintaining acceptable quality standards across the country.
• The spread of educational technology and connectivity has given an opportunity to resolve this issue and aim at equity in educational standards.

Additional Advantage

• It will leverage the existing platform of e-Pathshala, DIKSHA, NROER,NPTEL, e-pgpathshala SWAYAM and SWAYAM-Prabha DTH Channels etc. by MHRD have provided adequate content of high quality which can be taken to every classroom, and thereby facilitating blended learning and flip class learning.
• These pedagogical interventions can adequately raise the standards of teaching, irrespective of the location of the educational institutes.
• Such technology enabled learning can also inspire teachers across the country to raise their own standards of teaching.

Implementation in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs)

• UGC will be the implementing agency for ODB in HEIs.
• UGC has passed a resolution for extending digital education to every classroom in the country by 2022.
• Based on the readiness, UGC proposed to take up 300 universities and about 10,000 colleges in the first phase covering 2 lakh classrooms.
• For the 2 lakh class rooms, the cost is estimated at Rs. 2000 crores. This can be implemented as a Central scheme, as a loan from HEFA.

Implementation in Schools

• Digital/SMART board will be provided in all Government and Government–aided schools having Secondary and Sr. Secondary classes.
• Nearly 1.5 lakh Secondary/Sr. Secondary schools will be covered under the scheme in collaboration with the State and UTs