Lockdowns and learning curve: Digital access doubled, but outcomes uneven

Last week, Maharashtra announced a decision to open schools. But Maha­rashtra is something of an exception; not all states have decided to restart schools. Delhi, for example, has had schools under lockdown for the most prolonged period, as the National Capital Region also had to discontinue classes owing to pollution.

With schools having been closed for long periods, learning has inevitably taken a hit. In most states, dropout rates have increased, and more children have shifted to government schools, which historically had lower learning rates than private institutions.

But one noteworthy point is that digital access has also improved since before the pandemic. An analysis of the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) for 2021 shows that households with smartphone access nearly doubled bet­ween 2018 and 2021. Where just over one in three households owned a smartphone in 2018, by 2021, alm­ost two in every hous­ehold had acc­ess to a smartphone.

What is more, in 2018, only nine of the 25 states had more than 50 per cent of households with smartphones. By 2021, all 25 states had over 50 per cent access to smartphones. More­o­ver, 10 states have over 80 per cent smartphone accessibility.

But a deeper analysis of the data shows that smartphone availability did not always translate into access to learning. The ASER survey showed that nearly one in four students across India still could not access smartphones for study, and only a fourth had access to it at all times. In Bihar, over half the students could not access smartphones for learning, and just about one in 10 could use them all the time.

Not surprisingly, the ratio of students learning through sma­rtphones was even lower for these states. In Bihar, only 10.1 per cent accessed smartphones for online learning, even though 11.8 per cent had access to smartphones all the time.

Kerala was the only state where 91 per cent of children had access to online learning, even though 76 per cent had access to smartphones all the time and 21 per cent had access to it sometimes. Only four states had over half the children using online resources.

In only two states (Haryana and Andhra Pradesh), access was greater in government schools than private schools. Across India, only 21.8 per cent of the students in government schools had access to online learning, whereas 31 per cent had access to private schools.

Since enrolment in government schools has increased over the last few years, results from the ASER survey indicate far fewer students have access to online learning — 71.9 per cent of boys and 76.5 per cent of girls had enrolled in government schools in 2021, compared to 62.8 per cent of boys and 70 per cent of girls in 2018.