Laxmi, a ten-year-old girl, may never go back to school. Her school was closed when Covid-19 struck India in 2020. Now her parents cannot afford to send her.
Laxmi was enrolled in a private school near her at a cost PS21 ($26/year). The family paid for it by borrowing money from their relatives.
The school was chosen partly because she could not travel to the nearby government-funded school.
Her parents were also concerned about the quality and lack of facilities in the school’s toilets.
“I have three children. Laxmi, the oldest, is my mother. After being educated, we thought her life would be very different from ours.
Rekha Saroj, her mother, says, “Even though I barely make any money, I wanted my kids not to have the exact same life as me.”
The pandemic caused a flood of online education platforms to help Indian children. However, this has not been possible for India’s most poor households.
“Digitalization of education may be a good thing, but what about us?” “With no money or internet access, how can we have a better tomorrow?” says Mrs Saroj.
There are many programs available for children attending government schools to promote digital education. These include DIKSHA, an online service that allows schools to access content in 32 languages.
Despite being well-intentioned these efforts seem to have had little impact on children during the pandemic. Schools were also closed. According to India’s Annual Status of Education Report, (Aser), only 40% of children enrolled in schools had received any learning materials or activities during the week of the survey.
This was especially true for children under five years old, who have less access to technology. According to the report, almost a third (between five and eight years old) do not have access a smartphone to aid their learning at home.
The report stated that “the proportion of families who had contact with teachers was strongly skewed in the favor of better-off families.”
Jean Dreze, a Belgian-born economist, explains that “Indian education” is largely designed to benefit the privileged, easy winners of this uneven race.
“Schools were shut down for almost two years due to pressure from well-off parents, who weren’t so concerned about the learning gap as their children were studying at home.
“Children without access to online education were more often than not abandoned by the schooling system.” To close the gap, he said that while India’s schools are reopening, “much to little is being done” to assist children who have been left behind.
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Mihir Gupta, the co-founder and CEO of Teachmint is an online platform where teachers can host lessons, distribute materials, and communicate with students.
According to Mr Gupta, the service is available in ten million cities and towns and 5,000 schools.
However, he acknowledges the challenges that students face in reaching them in areas with poor internet connectivity.
He says, “We realized early-on that there was a problem with internet bandwidth variations across India. This made it difficult to reach more and better educators.” Teachmint’s service is optimized to work on slower internet connections and mobile devices, rather than desktop computers.
Anjela Taneja who is the head of Oxfam India’s Inequality Campaign for charity, believes that much more must be done.
She says that even in families with access to high-tech and low-tech tools, children had difficulty learning remotely.
She says that a home environment can be difficult to foster learning. Girls are particularly affected by the fact that they tend to take on more household chores than study, and boys have a preference to get gadgets.
According to the government, BharatNet is a scheme that provides faster internet access for rural areas.
According to India’s Education Ministry, 52,567 schools in government were connected via the scheme that was launched in 2012.
It was also stated that schools who are still waiting for a connection to TV or radio can use government-funded television and radio services, as well as a variety of education services.
Shiv Kumar is an Oxfam worker in Uttar Pradesh’s most deprived areas. His job is to make sure that more children attend school on a regular basis.
“It is a saddening scenario in Indian villages. He says it is difficult to convince parents to send their kids to school.
He visits many households without an internet connection or a smartphone.
He has also started a class called a “mohalla” to help. He will come to a home and teach lessons to children who show up.
His smartphone is used to teach the children Hindi numbers, alphabet and basic concepts.
This type of supplementary education is becoming more popular in rural India. It provides 2 to 3 hours per week of additional education, but relies on community volunteers.
“We are discussing digitalizing education. But how can that be possible for village parents with limited resources?” He asks.
Many children feel left behind. Sivani, a sixteen-year-old girl from Uttar Pradesh, fears that her window of opportunity may have closed. At ten, she had completed her schooling.
She says, “I wanted to go to college but didn’t have the money to do so.” “My parents believe that working at home and caring for the family are more important than learning.
“I’m not the only one. She asks, “Many girls in my village don’t study… How is life going to change?
