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Thursday March 28, 2024

Connectivity issues

By Editorial Board
December 05, 2020

While inequities in education between rich and poor children existed even before the Covid-19 crisis hit the world, these have sharpened with the necessity of online learning, as schools around the world closed down. In a new finding, the UN says that two-thirds of the world's children have no access to the internet, and therefore no access to online learning. They are then in danger of falling further behind their peers. In the developing world, specially Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia, only one in 20 children has access to the internet in their homes, while for developed countries, this number stands at 9 out of 10. The same is true of college-age children between 15 and 24 years old, with 63 percent of these students having no access to the internet. The question then opens up about how they are expected to continue their learning.

The gap between those who have facilities and those who do not is becoming a chasm. This vast gap will be extremely difficult to overcome. The problem also is that, even when children do have some form of Wi-Fi or internet in their homes, in many households they are not able to use it because of demand from other family members or because they are engaged in chores, household work and sometimes labour in order to help families manage in a time of crisis. It is also true that even in the US, children from deprived backgrounds have far less adequate access to the internet compared to their wealthier peers. This is not a minor problem. It means that millions of children around the globe are not getting any education at all during the period when education remains online. The delivery methods between poor schools and those with more resources are also vastly different. The issue needs to be addressed in one way or the other. As Pakistan has done, public sector television is one way to address the gap. Many more people have television within their homes compared to the internet. Programmes run on television following course books at various grade levels could help fill the gap to some degree.

This may not be sufficient, but it is better than nothing at all. The programmes Pakistan has run on PTV to promote education are extremely useful to at least some children who follow them and have gained from them. The pattern could be improved further. But, even then, the online gap will remain the same. It affects children even when there is no pandemic and when schools are open given the increasing reliance of the world on the internet for research and information. It is difficult to fill this gap immediately. The gap is also wider in rural areas compared to urban ones. But some means to move towards equality has to be found, so that gender gaps and gaps between the rich and poor, the urban and the rural can finally be filled.