Information Inequality: Revisiting NEP’s Digital Proficiency

By Showkat Ahmad Mir 

The new National Education Policy 2020 envisions the future citizens of India to be digitally proficient, in addition to acquiring skills and attitudes like scientific temper, creativity, and evidence-based thinking. These recommendations seem to be imperative for the idea of making of ‘Vishwaguru’ Bharat.  Both access to information and proficiency in terms of utilizing technology for educational processes are prerequisites for any nation to be a part of the future knowledge economy. However, the digital divide and lack of digital proficiency among the populace suggest otherwise. To be digitally proficient means to be able to find, evaluate, and communicate information by using digital platforms. It also anchors on the ability to create, evaluate, and share information via information and communication technologies. Lepofsky, sees digital proficiency to be composed of two vectors viz, “Skill level and Comfort level with technology”. 

This knowledge of digital proficiency is not only important for individuals to be aware of current and modern trends of the globalized world; it also becomes significant in the transaction of knowledge within classrooms. Technology can be a very good tool of assistance in the teaching-learning process. For technology-assisted learning, both teachers and learners need to have digital skills but data on digital skills in India speaks otherwise. NEP 2020 anticipates India with schools having smart classrooms, using digital pedagogy, and enriching the teaching-learning process with online collaborations and resources. It envisages “the thrust of technological interventions will be to improve teaching learning and evaluation processes, support teacher preparation and professional development, enhancing educational access, and streamlining educational planning, management, and administration including processes related to admissions, attendance, assessments, etc.” However, with such a huge education system in India, the aforementioned recommendations seem to be a herculean task. Besides, having such a large educational system, it lacks strategies to promote education for the socio-economically disadvantaged groups. The amount of money India spends on education is far less than what was recommended by the Kothari Commission six decades ago. Furthermore, our education has not been successful in integrating modern technology in education due to various reasons. According to UDISE, 21-22, “more than nine lakh schools do not have functional computer facilities. It further shows that only 34 percent of schools in India have internet access. Among the schools that have internet access, only 24 percent are government schools. Forget about integrating technology only, 13.4 percent of schools still do not have functional electricity connections. India Inequality Report, 2022 highlights that “More than 80 percent of teachers reported facing challenges in teaching online”. The importance of information and communication technologies in the educational processes has been long ago recognized by various thinkers who tried to see the benefits of integrating modern technology in education. They hypothesized that technology can eventually play a vital role in the educational processes and in achieving desired behavioral objectives of learning. This makes the relationship between technology and education what NEP calls ‘bidirectional’. However, in the Indian context, the idea of integration of modern technology with multiple socio-economic and socio-political hindrances may get a back seat and may need an ample amount of time.

The new NEP acknowledges the local context for the use and integration of technology in the educational process. It does use the word ‘remote’ areas where technology and software are to be made available for the teachers and students. To take up this task, NEP-2020 recommends setting up a platform called Educational Technology Forum, this platform shall felicitate, govern and create the e-content and make every possible way to reach every nook and corner in the country for delivery of e-content. It will also take up problems to be faced by the communities or disruptive technologies in the schools. The NEP 2020 also highlights that “A rich variety of educational software, for all the above purposes, will be developed and made available for students and teachers at all levels. All such software will be available in all major Indian languages and will be accessible to a wide range of users including students in remote areas…” Here again, policymakers, deny the grim picture of the Indian education system and make recommendations that appear difficult to implement. 

The introduction of information and communication technology in education in the 1990s and the cognizance of the digital divide in the world in 1995, gave rise to what  Linuma Mizuho calls “information ‘haves” and “the have-nots”. This digital divide is further located in the socio-cultural context. The people who have more resources get more information digitally. There are only a few schools that get much attention from the government in the form of model schools or digital universities, Other schools have to struggle to get the basic facilities from the administration and if the institutions are located in remote regions; the challenges become even worse.  

The NEP 2020 uses the terms ‘remote’ and ‘local contexts’ which can be extrapolated to the tribal and rural areas, where life is difficult and challenges in integrating technology into education are very high. Introducing technology or the internet to these areas is one of the major challenges for policymakers and the government. There have been very less studies that could discuss the problems of using and integrating technology in the rural and tribal areas. Looking at the remoteness, geographical location, and hardships faced in these regions, one could think about information ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. The rural and tribal population has disadvantages on various fronts, these regions get marginalized, dispossessed, and underrepresented in terms of accessing technology. The grim picture of inequality in technology can be understood by the following data, India Inequality Report, gives this description of digital quagmire “Despite a significant growth rate of 13 percent in a year, only 31 percent of the rural population uses the internet whereas 67 percent of India’s urban population uses the internet”. Furthermore, “only about 9 percent of the students who (are) enrolled in any course had access to a computer with internet, and 25 percent of enrolled students had access to the internet through any other kind of devices. It further highlights that only 4 percent of the students from Schedule Tribes and Scheduled Castes have access to computers with internet facilities. And “the percentage of students from “Others’ ‘ who have internet access is 3 times more than the percentage from ST groups”. The access to computers with internet was highest among students of top income decile. It becomes obvious that students from low socio-economic backgrounds have less chance to get access to digital platforms; they have less chance to learn via technology. Not only do these socio-economic dimensions strengthen the digital divide but teachers are also not proficient in using technology in Indian classrooms. 

Making teachers technologically proficient in India seems paradoxical given the context of the huge digital divide that exists. The immediate need is to have context-specific responses to technology in rural and tribal areas and to build a basic infrastructure of education instead of roving in the ideal digital space.

Views expressed in the article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the editorial stance of Kashmir Observer 

• Showkat Ahmad Mir is a Research Associate in the ICSSR project at the Central University of Himachal Pradesh

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