Dr. Vinod Bhardwaj, Associate Professor, Dept. of College Education, Govt. of Rajasthan emphasizes on the digital education

“We are in need to first digitalize our campuses, give them IT facilities and infrastructure so that we can reach to the students and needy ones in a better manner,” says Dr. Vinod Bhardwaj, Associate Professor, Dept. of College Education, Govt. of Rajasthan in an interview with Chandan Anand, CEO & Group Editor, ArdorComm Media Group at the ‘ArdorComm New Normal – Education Leadership Summit & Awards 2022’ #ELSAJaipur #ELSARajasthan

How’s your experience to witness the New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards?

This is a great privilege to be a part of this event over here in fact, after covid I am witnessing the first program of this kind where people are talking about education quality, innovation, skilling and digitalization of the educational institutions. Basically, what is happening that after covid a lot of changes have taken place in educational domain but very few people took care about those changes and those compulsions. So, this platform is giving that kind of discussion and bringing people to have the discourse on the changes and their remedies. It was a pleasure for me to be a part of this event that when we were discussing about the innovation and skilling and digitalization of the campuses that’s wonderful program I’m seeing over here and I really admire and acknowledge the contribution of ArdorComm that they have taken this initiative and this program is being organized in Jaipur.

Dr Bhardwaj you have been doing so many works under your department to impart digital education, any special initiatives or anything which you remember during your tenure which you would like to share as an experience or as a case study?

In fact, after covid we are also just looking for the social media platforms and IT based platforms where we can disseminate the knowledge or the contents to the students. So, we started one program like Gyandoot, so we were having online classes but again whenever we talk about the free sources or free resources available there is a restriction about that. We understand that if we use them then there are restrictions of sometimes storing, sometimes the buffering problem, sometimes the delivery problems, sometimes the network problem, a lot of things. So, instead of that if we can have some small investments in such kind of facilities and inviting some agencies, expert domain people to make this thing facilitate so what will happen certainly our part is to deliver educational content and to reach up to these students that we can do easier. So, we started some program Gyandoot, I remember that more than six lakhs viewers were there when we started this program after one month or so then after that Gyansodha, Gyanganga this kind of program we also started. So, these are all IT based programs and what is the result of these all things or initiative so that certainly we are in need to first digitalize our campuses, give them IT facilities and infrastructure so that we can reach to the students and needy ones in a better manner, that we can do.

How does certain kind of forums help when we see educators, academicians, edtech companies, startups and even the representation from government uniting at one platform?

Definitely this helps a lot, because couple of years back I was a part of this kind of programs, higher education conclave, even some programs were organized in the association with our department when I was there also and my former commissioners and additional chief secretaries they were enough kind to take this kind of initiatives and we started and I remember that you were the part of that, you were the other team lead at that time, so what happened that we got some agencies under the roof we got some MoUs through this kind of programs who got associated with us and we got our institutions benefited. Some kind of training programs to our students, some kind of skilling programs to our students, so this was a great benefit of this kind of program and still I’m looking for such kind of agencies over here in this program as well. So, this is a wonderful program and really this kind of initiatives rather help to bring all the people, the service providers and service takers at one platform under the one roof and you as a facilitator certainly contributed great in that kind of things.

We have been gathered here for a New Normal Education Leadership Summit and Awards, what does the word new normal for you stands?

New normal is in fact after covid this word is being very much used, sometimes it has become rather a part of our discourse at different platforms but really the topic you have chosen for this discourse is the need of hour, new normal means now we have to give up the traditional formats of imparting knowledge or giving knowledge or the curriculum the syllabi especially the mode of delivery is very much important which we have to take care in this phase and so New Normal is very appropriate, what you are using and in the light of this topic a lot of changes are to be taken into institutions and in the mindset of the people. Certainly, when the Vice Chancellor of some universities were discussing in the forum and other educationists were discussing in the morning session I was very happy at least people are worried about all this new normal and they are thinking seriously on this issue that what should be the shape of our institutions and the education system and when they were quoting about the new education policy, the new education policy is also expecting some kind of changes in the system and New Normal is also expecting this so we are going on the right track to combine the two objectives altogether and introduce some changes in this system and they are certainly to be taken whether it is part of research, whether it is part of examination, whether it’s part of teaching, whether it is part of innovations and skilling all things are to be on one top and they are to be taken into care for change.

Any good wishes or any advice for ArdorComm Media Group?

You are doing excellent job and so I wish a lot for you to get a grand success and I want to see you in a big umbrella in different fields of development and I wish that you should bring more people on the platform and get them benefited from through your initiatives that would be great success to you, best of luck.