Sir,
Over 290 million children in the country are out of school because their schools are closed under the lockdown orders. It prevented many of the children from the mid-day meal that they were being provided in their schools. The extremely poor persons, which are substantially increased due to many people sliding from lower middle class into below poverty line, could not cope with the new situation of their joblessness. They are therefore sending their children into labour. Now, there is no guarantee that such children would ever be able to return to schools.
When schools were closed, government tried to encourage students to read online or through TV. Many schools started this mode of teaching. Students were provided links. However, many of the families did not have, or still do not have smart phones for their children. Many families were not able to even pay for their recharge. There are connectivity problems both of electricity and internet. There are lessons on TV too, but many of the households do not have even TV sets. Fathers, mothers, or guardians of millions of students have lost their jobs due to which they are unable to support the new kind of medium of education. It is still not known when schools and educational institutions would reopen, and how many of the students would actually be able to return to schools.
This new scenarios indicates the digital divide. It is going to breed inequality among the children. The children from the poor families are under threat of being losing their future vis a vis the children from the privileged families. The Divide is real and alarming. Only 1 in 4 children have access to digital learning in India. The guardians of the children were not sure about their children going back to school after the pandemic, the Community Based Monitoring (CBM) findings have revealed.
Gyan Pathak
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