India looks at E-governance to improve education

In its bid to improve overall performance of learning institutions, the Indian government has outfitted 1,200 central schools in New Delhi with e-governance technology. 

Through this program, activities of both the students and the teachers will be monitored to increase productivity and achieve a more efficient administration. Officials of the schools are optimistic that the e-governance program can help improve performance of students, teachers, and school administrators.

Already, some educators are reporting such expected improvements. Suresh Singh, a principal in Kendriya Vidyalaya in South Delhi, has credited the adoption of the e-governance system with minimizing the drudgery of administration allowing him to teach more.

“Now I am more of a teacher,” Singh says, “less of an administrator”. Mathematics teacher Alka Sharma from Ahlcon International School in East Delhi shares the same optimism. Digital intervention lessens administrative burden on teaching staff, enabling them to focus more on educating than doing paper work.

E-governance has clearly brought an effective tool to teachers, who are also looking at leveraging technology to improve student engagement through customized tutorials, better pedagogy, which in turn, develops an ideal teaching-learning atmosphere.

The government tapped MGRM Net Ltd, an IT company to implement the project. MGRM’s senior vice-president Partha Mohanty said his company seeks to bring the e-governance program to private and government schools as both require an education system that observes “transparency, accountability, improved efficiency and universal access to information”.

For this specific purpose, the e-governance is the solution he believes will bring a remarkable difference. Numerous domestic and international studies have revealed quality issues with India’s education sector, making it the target of a reform initiative.

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has also considered the same e-Government technology through its “shaala darpan” system, an ICT program that provides mobile access to parents of students of government and government-aided schools.

With this technology, parents can view updates on their child’s progress. Observers are optimistic that integrating “shaala darpan” with e-governance technology would bring about outstanding results in terms of student engagement, assessment and gap analysis, and even school infrastructure.

Highlights of EVOTE2012

Source: EVOTE2012 Facebook Page

The fifth International Conference on Electronic Voting (EVOTE2012) was one of the most anticipated events in the year for the world of electoral technology. The conference, held in Bregenz, Austria from July 11th to the 14th, was deemed a complete success by participants and organizers alike. Hundreds of researchers, developers, government representatives and business people from all around the world gathered at Castle Hofen to share experiences and breakthrough discoveries in e-voting.

This year’s theme for the convention was “Challenges for Electronic Voting – Transparency, Trust and Voter Education”. In this respect, speakers presented various cases of best practices in auditing, testing and verifying elections held through voting machines. Some new technological developments for e-voting were also proposed during the conference.

One of the features that distinguish this prestigious event among the academic community is that in order to be a speaker it’s necessary to enter a paper to apply for a spot. After submitting it, the organizers’ committee evaluates them and approves participation with a conference

Among the many activities and forums held during EVOTE2012, on July 13th there was a workshop about the “Venezuelan Electoral Technology”, in which participants were able to get to know more about the multiple benefits that this platform offers to voters in terms of auditability, accuracy and transparency. Developed by the multinational Smartmatic, and deployed more than 10 times in different electoral events in the country, for the first time the electronic voting solution will include during the upcoming National Election to be held on October 7th, a brand new biometric identification system to perform voter authentication and guarantee the principle one voter - one vote. 

Another interesting conference was offered by Carlos Vegas who talked about “The New Belgian E-voting System”, developed for the upcoming elections of Flanders and Brussels-Capital Regions to be held on October. According to the several academic speakers and experts who exposed about this case, the new system was based on a proposal presented in a comparative study on e-voting requested by the administration to a consortium of Belgian universities. Among the various advantages offered by the system –besides the fact that it was designed and conceived by Belgium academics- is the incorporation of a printed vote receipt that allows the voter to confirm its selection.

Mark Phillips gave another interesting talk: “Testing Democracy: How Independent Testing of E-Voting Systems Safeguards Electoral Integrity”, in which he explained the importance of independent certification for automated voting systems using as an example the successful automated elections of Philippines in 2010. Mark Phillips is President and Chief Executive Officer of SLI Global Solutions.

EVOTE2012 probably the most important event in the year for those involved in the development, implementation, and analysis of electronic voting. The fact that such a great convention has been assembled around electoral technology is a testimony of how much has been achieved in this area, and how promising the future looks for these technology solutions.