Digitally Divided India Has Millions With Faded Away Education Dreams

Source: The Indian express

 Pandemic and digital divide have broadened the distance between haves and have-nots, Separating them between the tech-empowered and tech-deprived. Further, millions of children are struggling with the challenges of e- classes.

The Pandemic that locked people into their houses and forced educational institutions for online classes has bordered education dreams with necessary conditions of a computer or at least a smartphone, constant power supply, and proper internet connection. Data of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (2017-18) shows that just 10.7 percent of the whole country's population have computers while 23.8 percent have internet.

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In the floodplains of the Yamuna along the Delhi-Noida Border, some children reside in a small settlement whose life was never easy. They had to cross the river in a boat for reaching their school and now, it's much more tough. Even if any of them has a smartphone yet there isn't any adequate power supply. Hence, they can't attend online classes. Another case tells us about 1 smartphone shared amongst 4 siblings so, they have to take turns resulting in 3 of them to miss their classes.