Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Sanjay Shamrao Dhotre conferred National ICT Awards to 43 School Teachers for the year 2017 for effective and innovative integration of ICT in promoting student’s learning in New Delhi today. Secretary of Department of School Education & Literacy, MHRD, Shri Amit khare, Director NCERT, Dr. Hrushikesh Senapaty and other senior official of Ministry were also present on the occasion.Shri Sanjay Dhotre congratulated the national awardees and said that the purpose of National ICT Award for School Teachers is to honor those teachers, who, through their commitment, have not only improved the quality of school education but also enriched the lives of their students. He further said that the ICT awardee teachers are also been bestowed with a responsibility to function as ICT Ambassadors in widening the outreach of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in Education through their continuous efforts by mentoring other teachers and also develop entrepreneurial skills among the students in order to develop a skilled human workforce.Speaking on the occasion secretary of Department of School Education & Literacy, MHRD, Shri Amit khare said that technology has increasingly become a vital element in the enhancement of quality in education.
He further said that the use of ICT would help transform the process of teaching and learning from the traditional instructional teacher-centered Endeavour to a learner-centered approach. Therefore, teachers need to equip and acquaint themselves to the use of technology for pedagogical practices which would lead to improved efficiency, he added. Shri Khare said that awardee teachers are the inspiration for other teachers in the country and it is their responsibility to guide other teachers in regional centers.The MHRD, while giving importance to ICT, envisions ensuring higher coverage, easier access and enhanced quality of e-contents for teaching and learning, training of teachers to effectively handle technology aided teaching, technologically enable monitoring of hardware, e-content usage and online assessment. The Digital India Campaign (2015) of GOI strives to transform India into a digitally empowered society and knowledge economy by focusing on the three main vision areas: Digital Infrastructure as core utility to every citizen; Governance and Services on Demand; and Digital literacy and empowerment of citizens.Each awardee teacher will be awarded with a laptop, silver medal, ICT kit and a commendation certificate. All winners will form a community of resource persons through networking.