Background

Background

India has the world’s largest school system with more than 1.12 million schools spread over 604 districts across 35 States and Union Territories. Almost 35 million of its school aged children are still out of school, accounting for the largest out-of-school population in the world.

It became apparent from initial studies that, while education systems in India face enormous challenges, the opportunity to apply Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to address many of these issues is also very significant.   However, lack of a National ICT for Education Policy linked to National Educational Objectives has led to a proliferation of solitary, expensive and unreplicable ICT initiatives across India, often resulting in negative outcomes. At such a juncture, Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI’s) facilitation of the creation of an ICT in Education Policy by indentifying educational objectives and working on an end-to-end framework, has found an immediate acceptance with the Ministry of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Government of India (GoI).

GeSCI believes that India has the intellectual and human capacity necessary to ensure the efficient and effective use and integration of ICT in Education and GeSCI is mobilising the influence and resource base of the governments at state and national level, as well as companies and NGOs working in India, to plan for and implement large scale e-schools initiatives.