100% rise in rural children with access to smartphones, says survey

Despite disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the nationwide lockdown, rural school education saw improvements across parameters, and access to learning material increased for both government and private school going children.

This was aided by doubling of share of school-going kids in rural households with smartphones from 36 per cent in 2018 to 62 per cent by 2020, according to the latest Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) (ASER) 2020 Wave 1 survey. The survey found that around 11 per cent of families bought a new phone after the lockdown, of which 80 per cent were smartphones.

While the Covid-19 crisis