Insights into Editorial: Bridging the digital divide in education

Context:

While the pandemic has accelerated education online, it has also exposed a deep digital divide, with more than 30% students not having access to online learning.

This has increased the focus on building inclusive solutions in EdTech.

A ray of hope in this context is the National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR), the blueprint for which was recently released by the government.

Set up as a digital pathway to the policy goals envisioned in the National Education Policy, 2020, NDEAR takes on a ‘Open Digital Ecosystem’ approach, where a set of principles, standards, specifications, building blocks and guidelines seek to enable different entities to create elements of the digital education ecosystem.

At its core is the principle of interoperability, i.e., enabling disparate education related tech systems to “talk to each other” seamlessly, rather than operating in silos, thereby multiplying the possibilities of impact.

National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR):

National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) is federated, unbundled, interoperable, inclusive, accessible, evolving which aims to create and deliver diverse, relevant, contextual, innovative solutions that benefit students, teachers, parents, communities, administrators and result in timely implementation of policy goals.

NDEAR is under the aegis of the Ministry of Education in collaboration with Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY).

NDEAR is meant to enable a common set of principles and approaches to be followed in building, using and re-using technology for education.

There are four fundamental issues that implementers and enablers will have to factor in:

First, it will be important to ensure that NDEAR’s implementation improves and not worsens access to education in the context of India’s digital divide.

1. As per 2019-20 UDISE+ data, only 38.5% of schools across the country had computers and 22.3% of schools had an internet connection.
2. Therefore, it is crucial that the NDEAR vision is supplemented by concerted policy efforts to equip schools with the necessary ICT infrastructure, like Kerala’s KITE enabled interventions.
3. And in the interim, while the tech infrastructure is being built, it will be critical to drive access to NDEAR services through multimodal channels, including television and low-tech mediums such as SMS delivered through basic feature phones.
   1. Examples such as in Jharkhand’s DigiSATH initiative which leverages WhatsApp, television, the DIKSHA app as well as offline learning to connect all stakeholders.

Second, to ensure adoption of NDEAR enabled solutions and build the legitimacy of digital learning, it will be important to recognise the role parents play in both monitoring and facilitating their children’s learning, and engage them meaningfully.

An attempt has been made in Himachal Pradesh through the government’s e-Samwad application where schools send regular SMS updates to parents to establish a direct channel of communication.

Third, NDEAR will need to ensure that the data rights of children remain secure.

1. The potential of EdTech solutions delivered through NDEAR will depend on their responsible deployment, which would include responsible collection, sharing and processing of data.
2. Since children will never be fully cognisant of the privacy risks that the digital world entails, the compliance with the upcoming Personal Data Protection Bill, with additional safeguards given the target audience of this platform, will be important.
3. There are good frameworks for this both in the United States and the European Union that can be leveraged.

Lastly, given the pace at which digital learning is growing, NDEAR’s development should be firmly anchored in an ‘accountable institution’ that can guide its quick development while providing independent oversight needed for the management of the platform.

Digital education regarding to Indian Constitution:

‘Equality of Opportunity’ is one of the basic principles of the Indian Constitution.

Shifting to a system that benefits only a section of people and leaves behind the neediest ruins the very notion of this statement.

Moreover, digital education is something where India is not successful yet.

There is still a lot to do in terms of checking if students’ entitlements are not being compromised or in providing meaningful academic curriculum alternatives.

Way Forward:

1. A Multi-Pronged Approach: Flexible rescheduling the academic timetable and exploring options in collaboration with schools, teachers, and parents for providing access to education to a larger section of students.
2. Staggering teacher-student interactions in physical mode with not more than 50% of the total strength attending schools on alternate days.
3. Giving priority to the less advantaged students who do not have access to e-learning.
4. Genuine efforts must be invested to ensure every child gets good quality equitable education as a fundamental right.
5. Making Online Education More Effective: Shorter but quality discussions rather than long hours of monotonous sitting and one-way communication, should be preferred.
6. The teacher’s role has to go beyond just being in control of the class to being a facilitator for the transfer of knowledge.
7. Focussing more on Knowledge Aspect: Education is not about competence but more about motivation. The students are meant to discover not just cover the syllabus.
8. The system should not just heartlessly push the students and teachers in only finishing the course regardless of any gain of knowledge, stress should be upon quality learning and not quantity cramming.

Conclusion:

NDEAR presents an audacious vision to leverage the power of tech to enhance India’s education system.

Such an institution should have representation from tech and domain experts as well as teachers and parents to help ensure the NDEAR architecture delivers tech solutions that are truly student-centric.

This vision must now be matched with the right non-tech, student-centric enablers and safeguards to achieve its potential.