As the world today is moving very fast we need to know where we are now. We also know that we are living now in a civilized world. The world is developing year by year rapidly. With the advent of the information technology as emergence of a new social order,
there has been an urgent indispensability of computer literacy among the masses. Rapid progress in the area of micro-electronics and space technology has contributed substantially to time phenomena. And along with, the digital computer as an electronic machine has become a very powerful tool in information processing. All of us are aware of the fact of how easy it is to obtain information about our bank and insurance accounts, train and airline reservation. We watch television programmes with several special effects. Computerised Xerox machines, washing machines, digital watches and the like are familiar to all of us. We are also aware of factories with computer controlled ro- bots and space programmes with heavy dependence on the latest chip oriented technologies. These are just a few examples of the kind of changes which have occurred in our society in recent years and the rate of changes is still expected to increase in the coming years too.
The costs of introducing and using these new techniques of providing the necessary equipment and of training people in their use have to be set against the costs of old methods of operation and against the social consequences of making the change. The children/pupils in the schools are born into this time of change and like any new approaches and fresh solutions because they have not experienced the old technologies. This readiness to accept what is around them does not imply that education has no role to play. On the other hand education should equip children to cope with the world in which they will be living as well as helping them to understand it. This implies that the curriculum for all pupils will have to place some emphasis on technological change and its implications such a curriculum should leisure that all students, no matter what their future holds, are able to use technology, to communicate effectively with and through the computer and to appreciate its limitations.
The ‘Information Revolution’ of the 20th century which has been brought about by advances in the computer technology, has created an information society, in which majority of labour force are expected to hold information related jobs. Ignorance about computers will render people functionally illiterate as doe's ignorance of reading, writing and arithmetic. This shows that our society heavily depends on information technology in many aspects of work, personal life and hence, it will expect our schools to familiarize pupils with applications of computers during their schoolings, This familiarity will involve an understanding of the use of facilities such as word-processing, modeling, screen reading and the effective usage of files and data. It will also demand a limited range of keyboard skills.
To sum up, computers are an integral part of everyday life. Their impact is felt at every age level and in each economical level. Being able to deal with computers in a non threatening manner is a necessary fife skill. Hence, to a computer literate has become as important as being literate in the more traditional sense. In addition to acquiring three basic skills, namely reading, writing and arithmetic, which are known as 3 Rís one should have proficiency in the fourth R, namely computer. Without this, one may be excluded from many experiences and events in this modern scientific world. Hence, familiarity with both the theory and potential applications of computers is absolutely essential. Becoming a computer literate basically means gaining a substantial level of computer awareness and develop a functional level of skill in using computers as an aid to problem solving in a variety of disciplines, Keeping the machine pace towards the promotion of literacy, the computer literacy in schools was introduced in our country through a pilot project called CLASS (its expanded form is Computer Literacy and Studies in Schools) in 1984, by the Government of India as a joint venture of the Ministry of Human Resources Development (HRD) and the Department of Electronics (DoE). Computers contribute to education as aids to learning and instruction in the class rooms is as porters too! in research on human cognition. The effect of this factual conception has had an alarming feature of the introduction of the computer literacy programmes in different institutions.
A teacher always plays a very important role in the teaching-learning process and computers will
have to be used as teaching aids. Using quality educational software packages, good learning environments can be created in schools. As such it is necessary for all citizens to understand what computers can and cannot do, Students should be aware of the many uses of computers, such as their use in teaching-learning, information storage and retrieval. Hence, for the teacher the challenge is to learn and to be facilitator of the learning process rather than the source of knowledge. Any country's social and economic well-being depends entirely on how well we educate people for a literacy intensive technological world. If computers can
assist us in the teaching process then there is a good reason to welcome their appearance. Hence, it is absolutely essential for all those involved in education to become computer literate.
The writer of this Article is the eminent educationist and erudite scholar. Recipient of National and International Awards and Honours
