Figure 2: No Copyright Infringement Intended

Context:

• Recently, The Vice President Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu stressed that while Central and State governments are taking measures to promote digital learning, it is important to ensure that there is no digital divide. 

Vice President speech content:

• He called for increased access to the internet especially in rural areas and remote places and to ‘keep inclusivity at the heart of the educational experience’.
• According to him, ‘The mantra should be — embrace, engage, enlighten and empower’.
• He said that school closures affected girls, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, those living in rural areas, children with disabilities and children from ethnic minorities more than their peers.
• Vice President also inaugurated the NITTTR Open Educational Resource (OER).

Role of teachers:

• He said that teachers constitute the intellectual lifeline of a nation and play a critical role in charting its development.
• One of the important measures is to upgrade the skills of teachers in e-learning.
• He stressed the need to create teachers who are ‘learners and creators of knowledge — teachers who touch lives and seek to uplift the human
• He said that teachers have greater responsibility in moulding India’s huge youth population into responsible citizens.
• He noted that the teaching community explored technology and  showed ‘remarkable flexibility in reinventing their strategies and methodologies to support the learning of students’.
• He urged teachers to adopt innovative strategies to address important national and global challenges and opportunities in an intellectually vibrant, collaborative environment.

About NITTTR Open Educational Resource (OER)

About:

• National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai has acquired the status of one of the premier technological institutions of India, for training the technical teachers from engineering colleges and polytechnic colleges.
• It also offers post graduate programmes in the field of Education Technology, and Human Resources Management in the line of the Nation’s pursuit for regaining its position in a greater domain of advancement of the human society. Institute is also Ph.D. Programme in the areas of Engineering, Educational Technology, Educational Management, Engineering Education etc. 

Vision:

• To serve as a “One-Stop Institute of Excellence” and create an indelible mark in the fields of Multidisciplinary Education, Training, Research and Innovation at the Global Level.

Mission:

• To address the current challenges in the field of Technical Education and fulfil the evolving needs and expectations of the changing world by renewing the principles of the Teaching Learning process.
• To anchor teaching in the quality culture of the Technical Institutions and articulate pedagogical competence to satisfy the demand for “Lifelong Learning”.
• To transform the traditional “One Size Fits All” Model to “Skills over Degrees” Model.