Tap tech giants to bridge digital divide in education

Context: Big tech companies who are seeing huge profits during the pandemic need to play a proactive role in bridging the digital divide in education.

Impact of global pandemic on education:

• Widening of the digital divide: Children with access to devices like smartphones, tablets have been able to utilise the new mode of teaching during the lockdown.

• The urban poor and those in rural areas, have been left without any teaching facilities for months.

• Lack of availability of official  data: Official data says there are over 35 crore students in the country, but no data is available to show how many have access to digital devices or the Internet.
• Unequal access: A study done by an NGO of over 40,000 children covering 23 states, found that about 56% children did not have smartphones and also facing connectivity problems with the Internet.
• Lack of interaction with the students: The Kerala government tried offering classes on television. But there is no possibility of an interaction with the students.

Way Forward:

• Role of voluntary organisations: They have begun drives to provide computers and televisions to children in many parts of the country.

• An initiative has also launched to provide used devices to the needy students. 

• Adopting innovative solutions: Copying the model of universal healthcare and adopting the slogan of universal smartphones for school children.
• Mass production of smartphones: Indigenously made smartphones could be mass produced and provided to all students of government schools. 

• Gives a fillip to indigenous smartphone production, a cause close to this government’s heart.

• Opening the schools gradually, keeping social distancing norms in place.
• Taking the help of the tech giants: They can provide tech-based solutions to the underprivileged children who cannot access any form of education right now. 
• Partnership with Government: The government needs to open a dialogue with Big Tech companies to solve the problem of digital divide.