Online education in India
Coronavirus pandemic has changed the lifestyle of people all over the globe in one way or other. But the pandemic has impacted much adversely most of the socio-economically challenged communities. The worst hit by the pandemic are vulnerable sections and children across the world.
The children who belong to vulnerable communities got affected more than anything we can imagine. Schools are closed for months since the beginning of the Covid outbreak this year. A large number of parents from vulnerable sections have pushed their children into child labour.
Online education: Poor accessibility to internet
These children from vulnerable communities have no option for even online education. Therefore, families are pushing them into child labour to earn for the households, which have already lost their sources of livelihood during Covid lockdown. And children from remote areas who want to attend online classes are also facing barriers.
Such a case recently came into reports from some remote coastal villages in Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra. Here, nearly 200 children have to travel 50 kilometres daily to find the area having internet network. The children are forced to do this since the online classes began after severe impacts of coronavirus lockdown and cyclone Nisarga in the region.
Earlier in June, the internet connectivity got scratched in the region due to the disastrous cyclone, increasing the difficulties of children in remote villages. The situation didn’t improve for a month and one of the children had to sight help of the apex child rights body National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
Online education still not an option in India
Other reports came from Odisha, where students in Rayagada district had to walk miles and climb hills. Students in Sambalpur and Deogarh districts had to climb high rise water tanks. And students in Angul and other districts were climbing trees to get internet connectivity for their online classes. The situation was more or less similar in other regions of the country.
These are a few of many cases of non-availability or no availability of internet connection in any state of India to children, who have no other option than to study in online classes in current times. These pictures are asking, is the country really ready for online classes for young students? Or do we have just tall claims about development scenario when actual field is showing a different scene? The data about digital divide shows a dark reality of the country.
According to another report, India cannot think of digital education as only 8% of households with member between 5 to 24 in age have computers with internet connection. Only 11% of Indian households have a computer device like desktop, laptops, notebooks, netbooks, palmtops or tablets. Moreover, only 24% of people in the country possess a smartphone currently.
Digital divide in India
The coronavirus outbreak has widen the divide of rural and urban, rich and poor, haves and have-nots. Despite 66% of people living in villages of India, only 15% of rural households have internet accessibility, says 2017-18 report of National Sample Survey on education. As per the same report, while 34% of the people live in cities, 42% of urban households have accessibility to internet facilities.
Of the poorest 20% household, only 2.7% have computers and 8.9% have internet accessibility. And not only students, even teachers are not getting proper internet services to hold digital classes. Many teachers from different regions of the country are reporting less to no accessibility of internet in their areas. We can imagine, how many students can suffer if even one teacher is facing internet problems.
Not only in corona time, the socio-economic impacts of any pandemic show drastic consequences, and vulnerable sections come out to be the worst hit. Can children in the country rely on the online mode of education in such a scenario? In a country, where a large percentage of people are still deprive of two-time meal, online education for every child is still a far-fledged dream.
Conclusion
Even having computer with internet facility is still a luxury for most of the people. In countries like India where majority of people are still poor, thinking of development without considering them is not fair. The country needs to work on the ground level to provide poor communities the accessibility to digital services. Sitting in an air-conditioned room to boast about too many achievements is different thing. And visiting the field to see the real picture is diffrent.
