COMPUTER EDUCATION
By Sultan Muhammad
In the recent past the name of information technology was introduced to the world. Which in layman’s words is the provision of information through the World Wide Web with the help of computers. Computers unlike other mediums have versatility of applications. It has an unbelievably vast potential for storage of information in multiple media’s i.e. data, voice and motion pictures coupled with its ability to transmit it to any corner of the universe via a variety of mediums ranging from wired transmission to wireless transmission. In order to benefit from the positive effects of the computers in all the spheres of life, computer education has become a must.
In the first world countries of the world computer education has become a permanent feature right from the primary level of education and is considered as important as teaching them alphabets. That is why all students on entry to their first grade are first of all introduced to computers.
The role of computers have become so important that not only has it become a must in the educational institutions but organizations both in public and private sector are investing precious funds in the training of its existing staff in computer training. All this has been undertaken due to the fact that only those organizations will survive the first decade of the new millennium whose staff will be computer literate. Also connected with this is another equally important fact, which is that only those persons will be able to retain their jobs even in the third world that would have adequate computer literacy.
To impart computer education computer equipment generally refereed to as computer hard ware, programs generally refereed to as computer software and adequately qualified staff is required. The biggest hurdle in computer education is not the scarcity of computer hardware and software but the scarcity of human resources to impart this knowledge. The global scarcity of human resource is biggest hurdle for the third world countries. Due to very lucrative incentives being offered to computer professional in the developed world majority of the computer professional being produced by the third world end up as brain drain.
In the light of the above it is fairly clear that computers in an unbelievably short span of time have become the main source of providing up to date knowledge and information to the world. In short computers are the backbone of education in the new millennium, to be more specific education in the new millennium will totally be computer based.
In order to take the lead in the new millennium, which is the age of computers, every nation is striving its best to get command in computers so as to be the world leaders. In order to attain the aforementioned the biggest challenge will be to devise appropriate computer education policies whose main focus will be not only to provide computer education to maximum persons in the shortest span of time but also to keep on upgrading it too.
( Analysis of Computer education and syllabus for B.Ed / M.Ed students at Institute of Education and Research, University of Peshawar )
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