FUNCTIONAL IT-LITERACY

FUNCTIONAL IT-LITERACY FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

-A SURVEY CONDUCTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF KERALA

Information Technology(IT) is knocking at the door of academics, promising unprecedented opportunities for value addition, improved efficiency, effective collaborative efforts and qualitative improvement in teaching and learning and also educational administration. Functional IT-literacy for Students & Teachers of Higher Education is a time-bound and realistic project aimed at both students and teachers, to provide functional IT skills and to enable them to put it into action and tap the extra wisdom to create value addition in higher education in a cost-effective way.

In the initial phase, all teachers of a selected college will be trained and the college will be declared the First IT Literate College under the University. Peringamala Iqbal College has been chosen for this prestigious activity. This is expected create the momentum and peer pressure in other colleges. The University will give guidelines and provide resource persons to other colleges (either management or teachers organizations) which would like to emulate the model attempt.

The University conducted a Functional IT Literacy Survey to gauge the current use of IT in higher education and found that more than half the college teachers have access to I.T. facilities in the colleges. Also 30 percent of the teachers own PCs at home. While this shows that the teaching community is moderately equipped to tap the benefits of I.T., the survey revealed that only 18 percent of the teachers demonstrated even a minor involvement in the use of IT in teaching, learning and research.

Understandably, teachers of the higher age group were behind the young generation, 50 percent behind, in the use of computer, internet and the like. Teachers of Physics seem to be leaders in exploitation of IT, with demonstrable involvement. Teachers of Zoology and English came second and third in their demonstrable involvement. Malayalam, History and, surprisingly, Mathematics teachers showed remarkable dis-involvement in use of IT.

Some of the summarised statistics are given below:

I. Category: Overall

No.	Item	Percentage
1	Have access to PC in the Dept/College	53
2.	Own a PC	30
3	Have operated a PC by themselves	52
4.	Used E-mail	34
5.	Browsed Internet	26
6.	Have internet connection at home	18
7.	Recommended internet resources to students	17
8.	Familiar with educational CDs	30
9.	Use PC for setting QPs	28
10.	Use PC for storing/analyzing student performance	17
11.	Use PC for preparing salary/Income Tax statement	17
12.	Have personal web site	2
13.	Use Power Point for presentations	11
14.	Use digital diary	20
15.	Demonstrated an involvement in use of IT	18

II. Category: Age-wise

		< 30	30-40	40-50	> 50
1.	Have operated a PC by themselves	80	62	44	42
2.	Used E-mail	68	43	25	28
3.	Browsed Internet	56	31	22	20
4.	Familiar with educational CDs	44	41	24	24
5.	Use digital diary	20	31	14	20
6.	Demonstrated an involvement in use of IT	40	25	14	12

III. Category: Subject-wise

No.	Item	Botany	Zoology	Physics	Chemsitry	Maths	Malayalam	English	Hindi	Commerce	History
1	Have access to PC in the Dept/College	35	49	84	66	61	21	50	71	50	40
2.	Own a PC	10	26	42	40	27	7	39	0	22	20
3.	Have operated a PC by themselves	35	48	81	66	66	21	60	14	44	26
4	Used E-mail	15	33	54	37	27	7	40	0	27	26
5	Browsed Internet	15	26	42	33	16	7	33	0	11	6
6	Familiar with educational CDs	10	33	45	40	27	7	30	14	39	33
7	Use digital diary	10	26	21	30	5	7	21	0	22	20
8	Demonstrated an involvement in use of IT	5	24	40	18	0	7	21	0	16	0

IV. Category: College-wise

No.	Item	ThumbaSt Xaviers	Arts College TVM	SN Chempazanthy	Mar Ivanios TVM	MG College TVM	Kvtm Govt College	Womens College
1	Have access to PC in the Dept/College	65	31	38	34	67	35	60
2.	Own a PC	45	37	22	29	38	10	30
3.	Have operated a PC by themselves	80	37	43	52	51	60	40
4	Used E-mail	45	18	22	54	32	45	19
5	Browsed Internet	40	25	18	34	28	50	9
6	Familiar with educational CDs	50	18	20	22	34	50	16
7	Use digital diary	20	18	15	27	16	15	2
8	Demonstrated an involvement in use of IT	30	6	13	29	20	20	2