|
Pragyata: Guidelines for
Online Learning Fail
to Address Digital Divide
The
Covid-19 pandemic has strongly affected the children, particularly their
education, due to the lack of physical access to school. According to
the UNESCO, the pandemic, which has led to school closures, has
disrupted the education of 290.5 million students globally, a
drastically unprecedented number.
The pandemic has hit India too very hard. According to a report by the
UN in 2020, school closures have affected 320 million students in the
country with only 37.6 million children across 16 states continuing
their education through initiatives such as online classrooms and radio
programmes. The discontinuation of in-school learning has increased the
incidence of child labour in the country.
As a third wave looms large, the pandemic continues to haunt people in
terms of their livelihood and financial strength. If the third wave
strikes – and it is predicted to be more deadly than the second, it is
sure to derail the education of many more children.
The situation is no different in the skill development sector, where
most programmes follow a classroom-led delivery model. Because of
Covid-19, many faced challenges related to infrastructure and lack of
capabilities of trainers to deliver virtual training, particularly while
doing so from home. Moreover, participants from low-income families
didn’t have access to digital infrastructure either.
 The shutdown of schools and the suspension of offline classes have
forced students to resort to digital mediums like Google Classroom,
Google Meet and Zoom, which had been alien to them, especially in rural
areas. In a country where access to good internet connectivity is a
major challenge, leave alone the access to digital tools like laptops
and tablets, this unwanted transition has made things difficult for both
students and teachers. The situation is particularly distressing for
students with disabilities, as mobility challenges restrict their access
to the internet even more.
Since the inception of online classes, many students have complained
about their timings, duration, lack of breaks and the impact of all this
on their physical and mental health. Taking a note of these issues, the
Government of India has launched PRAGYATA, which provides guidelines for
digital education, especially to teachers. It is supposed to work in
three modes, online mode, partial online mode and offline mode. It aims
to show how digital education could be made more inclusive and less
exhaustive for children, and at the same time more interactive.
These guidelines are only advisory in nature and not enforceable to the
states.
They are broadly divided in six sections ranging from the very
definition of digital education and its modes to how the states and
union territories can implement them, advisories for teachers, parents
and students and so on. It prescribes that the duration of online
classes for pre-primary students should not be more than 30 minutes. For
classes 1 to 8, the government has recommended two online sessions of up
to 45 minutes each while for classes 9 to 12, four sessions of 30-45
minutes, with 15 minute of break in each session, are recommended.
Further, it directs the local government to admit children of migrated
labour without any paperwork, and not to strike out their names even if
they are not able to attend schools.
The main highlight of the guidelines is a set of eight parameters which
show the way to teachers to monitor the continuous progress of students,
along with assignments which are practical in nature, like tasks on
well-being, thus moving away from the ratification process. It also
promotes a link of communication and continuous interaction between the
three.
The advisories also address a contemporary issue, cyber bullying, urging
participants to refrain from it and also telling them how to avoid
getting bullied. They advise both teachers and students to not to share
any personal information, textual communications, videos or images on
social media for any purpose.
The guidelines also include programs like PM e-Vidya, which covers
Diksha, TV channel Swayam, radio and community radio under its umbrella.
They prove to be quite useful in also focusing on children with special
needs (CWSN) and recommends using resources like audio books/talking
books, TTS, sign language videos and audio/tactile materials
simultaneously, stressing that they should be treated at par with their
peers and not put in different categories.
But the guidelines do not say how to make classes more interactive and
inclusive, and alternatives for students if they cannot speak or write
in English. More importantly, they fail to recognise the digital divide
that exists in the country. Though many state governments have
distributed smart-phones, they surely cannot cover all the students
without devices. Many parents still do not have costly gadgets. Many
parents have taken loans to buy smart-phones for their children’s
studies. If there are two or more children in a family but only one
smart-phone, then boys are preferred over girls. When the device
question is solved, challenges of internet availability and
affordability continue to persist.
Also, more emphasis should be given to teachers’ training, their skill
development, assisting them in using the digital platform more
efficiently.
PRAGYATA thus proves to be a vague document which merely states the
obvious and lacks any out-of-the-box ideas or concrete measures that the
states can adopt. The National Education Policy, 2020 highlights the
need to bridge the digital divide and creating a digital infrastructure.
A clear roadmap with timelines needs to be developed to ensure that it
is inclusive.■
References:
Aakriti Uttama
auttam@devalt.org
Back to Contents
|