Need to redefine role of teachers: Pitroda

The advisor to PM says teachers today tend to give content, but totally lack the skills needed to mentor a child

There is a need to redefine the role of teachers as mentors, and technology can assist this change, Sam Pitroda, an advisor to the prime minister said here Thursday.

"There is a need to redefine the role of a teacher as a mentor. Teachers today tend to give content, but totally lack the skills needed to mentor a child," Pitroda said at the inauguration of a two-day Education and Culture Congress here.

"We are working on the idea. We will create content and then use the web to transfer it to teachers," Pitroda, the chairman of the National Innovation Council and Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations, said.

He also stressed that technology needs to be used in a better way for spreading education.

"Education is no more just about classrooms, blackboards and dusters. We need to use technology, but the biggest resistance comes from techer's unions which don't want any change," he said.

Pitroda also added that making use of technology, the Planning Commission was putting its entire 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) document on social media so that everyone gets access to it.

"The plan documents are in several volumes and several copies are printed. But where do those copies go? They are distributed to officials, and politicians. Only five percent read it and probably two percent understand it," he said.

"If its online, the whole nation can know what the plan is about," he added.