Limited computer, Internet facilities in schools affect digital education options

Education Ministry data finds less than 12% government schools had Internet in 2019-20, and less than 30% had functional computer facilities

In the academic year that ended with school closures due to COVID-19, only 22% of schools in India had Internet facilities, according to Education Ministry data released on Thursday. Among government schools, less than 12% had Internet in 2019-20, while less than 30% had functional computer facilities. This affected the kind of digital education options available to schools during the pandemic, as well as plans for hybrid learning in the days ahead. The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) report collates data from more than 15 lakh schools across the country. As the first wave of COVID-19 entered India in early 2020, schools were closed in mid-March, just weeks before the end of the 2019-20 academic year. The vast majority of the country’s 26 crore schoolchildren have not stepped foot in a school since then, depending instead on various forms of distance education. The availability of digital education — whether via live, synchronous teaching on apps like Zoom, or through recorded lectures, emails, WhatsApp or educational apps — was largely dependent on whether schools, teachers and parents had access to the necessary infrastructure. In many States, teachers came to school and taught in their own empty classrooms, using their blackboards and lab facilities, while facing a computer screen that communicated the lessons to their students at home.