BY SURAIYA NAZEER
I live in a country where education is free up to 6-14 years. This is what article 21-A of the Indian Constitution says. Is this really true in the present context of the digital education for which you have to pay at least Rs 199 or 299 per month in the form of net pack to your phone in order to access the education for your kids online. Is government doing anything to recharge the phones of parents whose kids are studying in government owned schools? If this is not they then why are you taking about the free education?
The words are still echoing in my mind when a little kid told to his friend that I am not attending the classes as my father said, “that he has no net pack in his phone.” Such is the story of so many students who, although want to attend the online classes but due to economic restraint they cannot. The fact is substantiated by another fact that if we look at the zoom app and check the attendance of students it is mostly two to three students in case of public schools and twenty at least in case of private schools. If policy makers are genuine in their efforts of welfare measures do they have any policies to recharge the phone of poor people?
There is no doubt about the fact that we are living in the digital age. The world is no doubt changing with the coming of the digital era. The humanity is facing the worst ever Pandemic. The virus is changing and is adapting to the environment by mutation, so it may live longer. The new normal is making change in every aspect of life rather change in social relations, the bigger challenge is to give the kind of education through new normal means or digitalisation means. If we analyze the staff in public schools most of the old age staff does not know about video apps or educational apps, and how to operate. What digital education can you give to students when the teacher does not know about the digital device properly?
No one will deny the fact that history is the division of classes and future also seems to be the same. The classes are always relative in terms of power. Society may change but the core will still remain the same. The universal fate of one class is to dominate another. Same is the case with technology. There is not bigger example as the example of the division of digitals. The society is still about the survival of the fittest and existence of mightiest. It is still not the society of equals. Richer class always finds the means to survive no matter how? Same is the case in pandemic as we are analyzing the booming of digital apps related to education in this Capitalist or Centralised market. The inequality is the base and it will remain there. Whom to blame if students or parents steal digital devices in order to get digital education, whose fault will it be?
The biggest conundrum that humans are facing and faced from times immemorial is the allocation of resources equally. No matter how hard we are going to try to allocate them equally there will always be disparity. The difference between the allocation from historical times to present century is that earlier it was the allocation of tangible resources now it is the allocation of intangible resources – that is digital. How to allocate the digital resources then? The solution to this conundrum was given by lot of social theorists. It is the responsibility of the state to allocate resources so that at least if not equally but give maximum benefit to the least advantageous. At last let us question ourselves; if the system is providing the working of public and private sectors together, is the public sector working in the spirit of constitution?
Suraiya Nazeer, Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir