A Crash
Digital daan is the new way to give.
(‘Daan’ is a Hindi word, and it means to donate)
Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc. are known to many children today. You guessed the reason correctly: online classes. Current Covid-19 pandemic and lock down has forced schools in many parts of the world to go online. And the problem is particularly grim in India.
My perspective says the problem are these:
· Lack of access to smartphones, internet etc. in many remote parts.
· Lack of digital experience and reality in village people.
· Over education — schools + coaching, tuitions.
Now why a crash? By crash I mean that a large percentage of educable children may go downhill with increasing acceleration.
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Let’s try to elaborate it one at a time.
You cannot deny that many parts of India lack access to internet and mobiles. Of course, education by means of school have been made more accessible now, but I can’t really say the quality of education is good everywhere. Even if not good, children at least could socialize, play together and uncovered many childhood mysteries rather than being engaged in labour or doing nothing. But COVID-19 crisis has forced schools to go online indefinitely. As many families in rural areas can’t afford smartphones (leave aside laptops), how the hell their children will get access to education? And if their poor parents sell assets like cows, land etc. for buying smartphones, what will happen to their livelihood? To connect to classes, you need internet (Is high speed net very common?) and to charge your phone you need electricity, all of which requires the input of more money which was already scarce (now much scarcer due to present pandemic). So online classes just don’t seem feasible for many families in rural areas. Few may be extremely lucky to get attention (a lot of thanks to media) so that celebrities/rich people may reach out to help them. But the problem is, there are innumerable needy people. They won’t get any help from government surely, so what would happen to them and their children (generally each of rural parents have more than or equal to 2 children)? So, a massive blow to education is inevitable, which will create a crisis later. And lo! The crisis already seems to have arrived after a quick fact check.
Over 6 million children are out of school, owing to pandemic. An ASER survey pointed 38.2% of children didn’t have access to smartphones and only 11% could connect to online learning (1). Lack of entry of new children in schools is also a concern though.
Now let’s consider the case of those who has got access to relevant gadgets and internet too. That’s very nice, as now they can connect to their classes. But wait! A hell lot of options suddenly open to be explored on the screen. When classes hours are over, what do you think the children would like to do? By the way, I am talking about rural areas only. Their parents are glad that they could provide their kids education in the new normal, but they are busy people (they have jobs, and don’t forget the rising unemployment currently) and they certainly don’t have much experience (if any) about what the digital world is. So, they just can’t be aware of what their children are being exposed to, who of course, will explore what is there in the gadget.
Suddenly, a variety of attractive doors open and they are vulnerable to be sucked into the dark world inside. Be it games, social media and other darker stuff on the web, they will be engulfed within now or later. It just can’t be avoided as neither their parents know about the stuff online, nor do they. Even we, having knowledge about the stuff in the web and how parts of it are addictive, can’t detach ourselves from the digital world. So, what fate do you think awaits many of the innocent children, who were only desperate for learning? I leave you to think about it.
Now let’s come to the final point I wish to raise. Overeducation! Many children, particularly in urban areas, need to get both schooling and tuitions/coaching. Why can’t just attending schools be necessary and adequate? If one cannot get good marks by attending school only, what’s the use of school then? But that is a topic for another day!
So, you are to attend both school and tuition/coaching classes, both of which have moved online. Of course, every day, there are both of these to attend. Schools have a holiday on Sunday (in some cases, Saturday too), but not coaching. Each day you got to spend hours staring at a screen. There isn’t much interacting and all you have to do is to feed yourself forcibly with the flashing images and the sound you perceive. Whether you can learn and concentrate there is a different thing. For my case, I find it very challenging and usually can’t concentrate online. Even if you understand the classes, the screen time sky rockets. And if you don’t, you refer to YouTube videos or other relevant matter in the internet. That means more screen time for you. Apart from classes, there many more times you would use the gadget. For example, yesterday I found myself using my laptop from right from morning to gloomy night. Sounds pretty bad, right? I don’t need to talk about the problems of excessive screen time here, I suppose.
Now after putting together the 3 points I tried to raise and analyzing the big picture with over 250 million children in the background (2), the situation doesn’t look well. A huge crash may be likely, I feel, though I hope it doesn’t happen. Let us wait for the future and find it out ourselves.
Thanks for reading!
