Right To Education And Digital Divide In India

Waseem Ahmad Bhat

We live in an age where digital technology and technocrats are considered invisible global leaders. From small retail stores to big government offices, almost everything is being carried out using digital technology. During the present crisis, the system of education has heavily come under the purview of digital technology. Education and digital technology lie adjacent to each other, but once latter, via internet, becomes the only agent of communication, the disparity comes to light.

Today in India, the education sector is the worst hit as students are stuck in homes, some in hostels, others have taken shelter in their friends’ residences, and yet others have lost their savings and are left with no option than fall into the deep abyss of mental illness. It must be noted that many students are going through psychological problems that they haven’t experienced before. Unemployment too has reached unreachable heights and surely, its outcome will have to be faced by students again once this phase has passed.

The Indian government recently launched the “Digital India Campaign or Technology Enhanced Learning” to make governmental services available to citizens electronically by putting in place online infrastructural improvement. The campaign aims to equip the country in the domain of technology and to provide high speed internet even to rural areas. However, once looked into it further, everything looks upside down. Those of us who are supposed to have been covered by the campaign are yet to taste it. The first query that strikes the mind is, what are the parameters of making a pure digital country? What does it need to connect to the outside world? Who has access to digital technology and what is required to receive online classes or e-learning?

Obviously, it requires proper investment in digital infrastructure to make each and every citizen be connected to the digital world, for which one must have access to smartphones, the internet, electricity, personal laptops, digital skills, and the like. Going by present circumstances, it seems that not everybody has access to these facilities as half of the Indian population is still struggling for basic necessities like livelihood, food, shelter, clean drinking water, health and more.

The draft of the New Education Policy, 2019 says, “the new vision of India’s new education system has been crafted in such a way so as to ensure that it touches the life of each and every citizen, consistent with their ability to contribute to many growing developmental imperatives and would ensure to create a just and equitable society”. On the one hand, the government endorses online education, but on the other hand, they do not provide adequate facilities for all to benefit from this. 

The historic Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted at the UN General Assembly 1948, states that everyone has the right to education. Article 26 of the Declaration says, “education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages” and “elementary education shall be compulsory”, and that “education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms”.  

Though the Indian Constitution too, under its 21(A) makes the right to education a fundamental right for children between the age of 6 to 14 years and makes it free and compulsory for the same, the current situation demands that education in India should be free and compulsory for all irrespective of the age, caste, color, class, gender, religion, region etc. 

The situation we are encountered with showcases a sorry state of affairs that only those students can avail the opportunity of online classes or e-learning, who possess devices like smartphone, laptops, internet, digital skill, electricity, and the like. In a country where these things haven’t reached a large majority of citizens, the government seems to be openly confining education to the privileged few. The deprived in this country, therefore, are not only deprived socially, economically, and politically, but educationally as well now.

This phenomenon tells us that though the pandemic is not discriminatory in itself, it is being used as a means to benefit a particular section of society whose education, lives, interests, and existence are more important than others’.

Waseem Ahmad Bhat is a research scholar at the University of Kashmir. He can be reached at waseembhat94@gmail.com.

Featured Image: Toby Morris

Follow us on Telegram: https://t.me/studentstrugglein