How IT is Changing Educational Landscape in Pakistan

There is no doubt that technology is enhancing the efficiency of each field of human life be it health, banking, agriculture or education. Both Governments and private sector from across the globe are collaborating to take maximum advantage of latest technologies and introduce innovative services for the benefits of citizens. Pakistan after the launch of 3G/4G services has also witnessed many such ICT developments. One such sector that got benefited from latest technology in Pakistan is the “Education Sector.” In this blog, province wise IT initiatives will be discussed in order to know that How IT is Changing Educational Landscape in Pakistan.

Punjab’s Initiatives

Let’s start with the province that is presently doing wonders in the above mentioned area. The provincial IT board “Punjab Information Technology Board” (PITB) has wonderfully done its job by introducing several IT reforms in the province including in education sector. It has launched “e-Learn Punjab” portal for students and academia. e-Learn Punjab aims to facilitate and encourage the use of educational technologies by providing digitized content, relevant supplementary resources and online assessment tools for the students and educators.

Another milestone project introduced by the PITB is the the smart school system working in Punjab; which is even considered as a model to be adopted by the foreign countries like Egypt.

Recently, PITB and Kazan sign MoU to expand technology-education cooperation. The agreement has been signed in order to analyze the probability of the joint startups, exchange program of startups and mentors and development process in Russian Federation and Pakistan.

How IT is Changing Educational Landscape in Pakistan-A Province wise Analysis

KPK’s Initiatives

KPK is also not far behind in this regard and fastly adopting many IT reforms in education sector. Some of the worth mentioning initiatives include the provision of free WiFi in universities of Peshawar. Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has introduced Online College Admission System for FA/F.Sc students in the all public sector colleges. Now getting admission in colleges has become convenient.

The first-ever KP Information Technology Board (KPITB) established by CM Pervaiz Khattak has recently introduced “Skills for Youth Project” across 9 cities of KPK in order to digitized the entire province. The “Skills for Youth Project” will establish 40 CISCO training academies in 9 cities of KPK.

Additionally, KPITB will help the Department of Elementary & Secondary Education to pursue a project “Early Age Programming & IT Essentials” for the children of Government schools. The initiative aims to impart an international standard training mechanism so that the children studying at govt. schools can equally reap the benefits of technology and get trained for future jobs.

A part from this, KPK govt. has also introduced various other projects and digitized many systems to improve and enhance the lifestyle of its people.

Role of IT in Educational Sector of Sindh & Baluchistan

Unfortunately both Sindh and Baluchistan is less developed areas as far as the ICT infrastructure is concerned. We have hardly heard of any special IT developments in their education sectors. Despite having IT boards, the provinces are still deprived of IT initiatives. Only back in 2015, Sindh government successfully introduced bio-metric collection system for schools and colleges. Through this system, the Education & Literacy Department, Sindh enhanced the accountability while focusing on following fundamental key points:

• Monitors deployed across Sindh to get real-time attendance of teachers
• Mobile app developed and synced with Biometrics device
• Monitors teacher’s attendance across Sindh-Live

Technology in the Field of Education Can Be a Powerful Tool

Hence we can say that the age of digital learning is here to stay, what we need is to take full advantage of it. The government of Pakistan should take significant steps to keep pace with rest of world in the field of education while utilizing technology. These important measures must provide equal opportunities for both rural and urban areas, as there is a dire need to work on the rural education system of Pakistan.

Also Read: Reformation of Pakistan’s Education System through m-Learning