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Institutions | Training | Online Education | Papers / Articles
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GIS Education in India-Reasons to Reflect
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The application of GIS continues to grow rapidly. The number of new GIS and RS software packages developed between 1966-1996 increased from 1 to 370. A study by R. Green (1990) showed that GIS expenditure in Europe increased 30% annually over the previous decaded. J. Fairall (1995) of Daratech, a company specialising in analysis of Information Technology trends, estimated that the total growth in the world GIS market from 1994-1998 would be 18% annually.
GIS technology has had a slower uptake in less developed countries initially, primarily due to the lack of hardware and human capital that is, people trained in using GIS and RS. US Landsat programme which records images of the earth's surface every two weeks for the last 20 years is a rich source of data. Now, the 'Mission to Planet Earth" NASA programme is generating a tcrra byte or 1012 bytes of data per day.
Remote Sensing is defined as a record of the earth's features obtained from remotely sensed images, without physical contact with the object. Satellite remote sensing is usually the most uptodate source of data and information for earth resources. It is synoptic, allowing regional scale studies to be undertaken, relatively quickly and cheaply. Continuing innovation and development of RS systems offer exiting possibilities of mapping and monitoring ladn resources as demand increases to access and use of limited natural resources in LDCs, how can GIS and RS assist in finding solution?
Where and How
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have matured into a set of support tools for a multitude of applications. These range from day to day operations, management support of administrative functions, planning of resource utilization to project specific or strategic management decision support. In a university, GIS is likely to be taught or applied as a tool of research in a number of different departments. Each with its own particular emphasis. Should this education and training in GIS be carried out at graduate level or post-Graduate level? M Barry and Shirley Butcher (1998) present a methodology for reading GIS in a university after consulting 20 education institutions in Botsvana, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (1996).
Again we come across the useful book of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in school education (Primary and Secondary) by David R Green (2000) for both techers and students in the UK, thereby filling an apparent gap on the current list of Geography and GIS text books. This book though contemplated a decade ago and commissioned by Taylor and Francis are still relevant to GIS in school education today as they were a decade ago, particularly in UK. The simple way to compile this book was to put together some of the then current research and examples which had begun to appear in to a number of AGI (Association of Geographic Information). GIS education sessions and subsequently into various different conference proceeding and papers, both in UK and Europe. The main aim of these early conference sessions was to try and stimulate interest in teaching GIS in schools and much needed channels of communication and links with the agencies who might be able to help from a number of different perspective: Academia, Commerce, Industry and hopefully even school and University Teachers.
Way Ahead
In order to start GIS eucation in India on a sound footing. We have to proceed along the following lines:
- Consult other publications on GIS in Primary, Secondary and Tertiary environment originating in Canada. North America. Austrialia and UK for text books.
- Development of teaching resources packages in human and instrumentation resources.
- Greater involvement of government both state and Central and University teachers in framing Syllabi and Curricula.
- Involvement of state remote sensing agencies.
- Greater involvement of School and University teachers in using GIS technology.
- Commercial sponsorship of school and college level GIS prizes co-sponsored by INCA and ESRI (UK) and Rolta (India).
- Greater interest from GIS bodies by forming an Indian Association of GIS.
- Growing awareness of the need to make greater use of Information Technology in schools as PCs have already been introduced in Indian Secondary Schools.
- Greater involvement of Commercial publishers. Software and Data Suppliers.
- Development of World Wide Web (WWW) or Internet on GIS.
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