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Editorial
"Freedom....It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located 
outside of man; nor is it an idea that becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for 
the quest for human completion"......Paulo Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Last year, on 19 September 2021, the world celebrated the birth anniversary of Paulo Freire. 
Paulo Freire is known for his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which he wrote in the 
Portuguese language in 1968. Its English translation was first published in 1970.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a treatise on human freedom and liberation from exploitations. 
Through this book, Paulo Freire expounds on the science, the art, and the philosophy of human 
emancipation through a pedagogy that gives importance to the people who have been at a 
receiving end of history. Their views, their opinion, their activities, and their reflection provide the 
force for change. Pedagogy of the oppressed is not only a conscious reflection of the conditions 
that fetters men and women in the bondage of all kinds but also a praxis for the own emancipation 
of the people. It is this critical pedagogy that Paulo Freire believed should be the hallmark of any 
educational system. 
A Brazilian by birth, Paulo Freire begins this book by establishing the absolute necessity of 
making people free from the clutches of exploitation. Such an act will not only be humanising 
for the exploited but for the exploiters as well. He then goes on to espouse the philosophical and 
educational contours of the critical pedagogy which will lead to human emancipation. He comes 
down heavily on what he described as the "banking model of education" which considered people 
as an empty account where teacher, acting as depositor, deposited the knowledge in the account. 
He called such a model of education as suffering from narration sickness. The banking model of 
education is slavery, he thought. Instead, he vouched for an education system where students 
and teachers traversed together as collaborators in the pursuit of knowledge. Trusting each other 
was the precondition for such pursuit of knowledge. Establishing dialogues and communication 
between people with a problem-solving approach were the ways of such a pedagogy. 
Even after more than five decades of the first publication of this book, the theory and analysis 
propounded in this book remain relevant. Today, when technology is mediating how we learn 
and what we learn and there is a deluge of options that technology offers to the cultivators of 
education then Freire comes to the rescue in terms of what is to be learnt. When one is in a maze 
of EdTech choices and can't decide the best option then the only criterion to choose a technology 
is whether it frees the learners or enslaves the learners. In the case of the former, accept it. In 
case of the latter, reject it.
The January 2022 issue of the journal delves into the zone of the use of EdTech. It has twenty-one 
manuscripts under various categories: seventeen research articles, one review article and two 
general articles along with a book review. These manuscripts relate to use of EdTech during the 
COVID-19 pandemic, in pedagogy and analysing competency, for MOOC and for CWSN.
I would like to thank all the authors and reviewers for their contribution in taking out this issue. The 
guidance provided by the editorial board members on various occasions has been honourable. 
The seventh issue of the journal is considered to contribute positively to the area of research and 
academic discourse.

(ABHAY KUMAR)

Editor