Remote education was inaccessible to most children, says survey

What is the News?

According to a survey conducted by ICRIER and LIRNEAsia, a think tank focusing on digital policy, remote education was inaccessible to most children in India.

What is remote learning?

Remote learning is where the student and the educator, or information source, are not physically present in a traditional classroom environment. Information is passed on through technology such as discussion boards, video conferencing and online assessments.

About the survey

The survey covered a nationally representative sample of 7,000 households. Only Kerala was excluded, due to high COVID-19 cases. 

What are the key findings of the survey?

Access to Remote Education: Only 20% of school-age children in India had access to remote education during the pandemic. Among them, only half participated in live online lessons.

Dropped out of School: Around 38% of households said at least one child had dropped out of school due to COVID-19.

Access to the Internet: Around 64% of all households with enrolled school-age children had internet access, while the remaining 36% did not have access to the internet.

Among children aged 5-18 years, the survey found that 80% of those who were enrolled in schools prior to the pandemic did not receive any educational services at all during school closure.

Source: This post is based on the article “Remote education was inaccessible to most children, says survey” published in The Hindu on 13th November 2021.