ICT in Education: A Study of Public Health Education

Modern technologies such as Information Communication Technologies have helped many of the development sectors. One of the sectors it has lot of scope to develop is the Education. It is also evident from the experience that the benefits of these technologies have contributed much in the area of healthcare. However, these benefits come with few limitations. A technology is useful only if (a) the systems are designed keeping the user perspective mind, (b) if the users are trained on those systems, (c) users recognize the need for a system and (d) users feel there is a need for such system. Developing a system for an application does not necessarily lead to usage. Many developments ended without giving any benefit to society. For the better usage and the benefits, one has to have a commitment to promote the system among the appropriate users by demonstrating the benefits of such systems. This further discouraged by the restrictions imposed by the IPR regime. There is some relief now due to the popularization of the free software movements. This paper is an effort to highlight the benefits of such systems in public health education with special reference to the open source online tools. Author is a faculty of a Public Health school teaching health management course to the students of public health. The paper addresses the importance of ICT systems in training the public health professionals. It also discusses the benefits and limitations of such system. The present system is a complementary teaching method to the existing classroom teaching.