Over 2.9 crore children in India have no access to digital devices: Education Ministry

Bihar has been ranked as the worst-performing state with 1.4 crore children without access to digital devices. Jharkhand and Karnataka have been second and third-worst performing states.

Over 2.94 crore children in India have no access to any digital decides, a Minister of Education report stated. However, the report does not give the complete picture as six states, including highly populated states such as Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal, are yet to submit their reports.

Bihar has been ranked as the worst-performing state with 1.4 crore children without access to digital devices. Jharkhand and Karnataka have been second and third-worst performing states with 32.5 lakh children and 31.3 lakh children, respectively, without access to digital devices.

However, there were no data available from states such as Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Manipur and Uttar Pradesh. West Bengal has reported that the survey is in progress. Rajasthan has said that it has no children without access to digital devices. Only 25 states and Union Territories have reported in proper numbers. Some states have also shared the percentage rather than the number of children without digital devices.

As per the report, Jammu and Kashmir has 70 per cent of children had no access to digital devices while Delhi reported that only 4 percent of their children had a lack of access.

The report named ‘Initiatives by the school education sector in 2020-21 for continuing teaching and learning’ stated that formal education for 26.45 crore children, 96.87 lakhs teachers and 15.07 lakhs schools were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report has also found that close to 26 lakh children in the country have no access to radio, and more than 25 lakh children had no desktop or laptop, more than 25 lakh children had no desktop or laptop, more than 2 lakh have no mobile access and more than 3.8 lakh children has no TV access.

As per the report, even the well-funded schools such as the central government’s Jawahara Navodaya VIdyalayas (JNVs) and Kendriya Vidyalayas (KVs) did not have full coverage of digital devices. The report found that more than seven percent of students in JNVs were without access to digital devices. In KVs, 98 percent of students were reported to have“full or partial access” to digital devices.

Read More:

• Gujarat University signs MoU with DRDO to establish cybersecurity research centre
• Mumbai University PhD Admission 2021: Registration process begins for PET 2021