School textbooks in Thiruvananthapuram to turn smart with QR codes from the coming academic year

In a first in the state, all the school textbooks turn smart from the coming academic year with attaching Quick Response (QR) Codes on pages to enable students, teachers and parents to download the study material digitally through smartphones.

A QR code is a type of two-dimensional barcode used for providing easy access to information through a smartphone or camera. As part of the first step, the QR codes will be integrated on the books of class IX and class X and later it will be implemented in other classes.

SCERT officers expressed hope that the initiative will be beneficial for students of schools which have been running with inexperienced or no teachers in some subjects. Sources in SCERT said that the reprinting of textbooks are underway to attach QR codes and it will be ready before the coming academic year. " All the students of class IX and X will be benefited by this system. Since the curriculum has been revised, the QR codes are need of the hour in textbooks", a top SCERT officer said.

However, the system has already implemented at other states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan.

According to A Shahjahan, General Education Secretary, the new system would be benefitted so that the students could understand the subject very well.

" The system will be implemented from the coming academic year. So the students will get the opportunity to study more about the subject", he said.

In this system, the teachers and students have to just scan the QR code printed on the textbooks using their phones on which they have downloaded the mobile application. Once the student scans the particular code, the mobile app will take them to more information on the subject.

To enable this, a mobile phone application, named Diksha, has been developed by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), which will help scan the

QR code. DIKSHA, which stands for Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing, is a national platform which hosts open educational resources and teacher-related information.

School teachers said that the integration of the new system would help students to refer to additional content to understand the subjects better through scanning.

"QR codes will be printed on books identified by teachers in the textbooks. These codes can be linked to engaging videos and interactive content to better equip teachers, and provide students with the same content. Students will be able to use the information from home as well", said K Jayakumar, a school teacher.