Digital divide: 2.96 crore students without digital device in India: Govt

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the digital divide in India and made education a privilege only a few can afford. According to government data, more than 2.96 crore school students in 24 states of India do not have access to digital devices with Bihar reporting the highest number (1.4 crore). 

The data does not include such students from Delhi (4 per cent) Jammu and Kashmir (70 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (70 per cent), Punjab (42 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (28.27 per cent) as their absolute numbers were not shared. While the data for states, including Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh is not available, the survey for West Bengal was still in process. 

The details were presented by Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in a written response to a question in the Lower House. In terms of absolute numbers, Bihar has the highest number of such students at 1.43 crore, followed by Jharkhand (35.52 lakh), Karnataka (31.31 lakh) and Assam (31.06 lakh). Uttarakhand has 21 lakh such children. 

Other states with over 10 lakh children without digital device are Haryana, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, while Kerala has 9.5 lakh children in this category, he said. 

Classes in all educational institutes were suspended in March 2020 following the COVID-19 outbreak. Owing to the lockdown, the education system shifted from classroom teaching to virtual teaching to avoid any academic loss.  

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