AMRITSAR:  The pace of progress in the world and the speed of innovations in technology demand a totally new paradigm shift in education.

This was stated by Er. J.S. Hanspal, Director of Development & Technical Services in the Bank of Montreal Financial Group Canada, during a special lecture organized at Ashoka Sr. Sec. School on the occasion to celebrate Teacher Day by Lions Club Amritsar Service.

Speaking on “Impact of Information Age on Education” he presented startling predictions about employment profiles and employability in the years to come and said that innovation in the IT demand a different look at education because real aim of education is to create ability to utilize knowledge which can be done by focusing on encouraging creativity and nurturing imagination. It requires that we inspire our students and prepare them for 21st century employment needs. The 19th century tools and methods of teaching and learning by rote and spewing out of undigested facts when the knowledge base is undergoing change at such a fast pace will not work.

Er. Hanspal mesmerized the audience of teachers and state awardees with many a statistical projection and the demographic advantage India and China enjoy over US, even if by default. According to him in 2013, a super computer will exceed the capacity of human brain. There will be no loyalty to any company. The people will change jobs frequently e.g. top 10 jobs of to-day did not exist in 2004. So we are preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technologies that have not been invented, to solve the problems that we don’t even know about. He further stated that technical information doubles every 2 years and it will double in days in 2010.. Bandwidth is tripling every 6 months. It will continue to do so for next 20 years.

On this occasion  Mukhwinder Kaur, Principal Govt. Girls Sr. Sec. School , M.S. Road , was also honoured by the club.  Mukhwinder Kaur had just received National Award for her valuable contribution in the field of education. Lion Y.P. Gupta, President of Lions Club Amritsar Service also awarded 8 teachers of different leading educational institutions of the city.

Among them  Promila Kapoor Principal of Ajanta Sr. Sec. School .  Deepak Sharma of Ashoka Sr. Sec. School,  Meenu Kataria of Bhabha Sr. Sec. School , Kiran Sharma of Jagat Jyoti Sr. Sec. Shool,  Sheetal Malhotra of Naval Public School ,  Meena Thakur of Navjot Modern Sr. Sec. School , Aarti Prabhakar of Prabhakar Sr. Sec. School and Simarpreet Singh of Swaran Sr. Sec. School were awarded with Certificates of Honour. Lion M.P. Singh Bedi, Region Chairperson of Lions Club International honoured the Lion Members and emphasized the need for the service of humanity.

The other Lion dignitaries who were present in the function were Lion Vidhu Puri, Lion Kamaljot Singh, Lion Rajesh Prabhakar, Lion Sucha Singh, Lion Gaurav, Lion Madhur Gupta, Lion Lokesh Walia, Prof.. Mohan Singh, Dr. Charanjit Singh Gumtala etc. The Principal of the school Er. Sushil Aggarwal thanked all the present dignitaries.