A picture of a young college going student, teaching primary school children in a village on the terrace of a house using a blackboard, was being circulated in social media platforms. This picture indicates the inaccessibility of required educational resources to the students deprived of digital devices. With the Covid19 pandemic pushing large swathe of children physically out of school, the people with access to Information and Communication Technologies are celebrating the privilege of attending online classes, being tutored by their corporate schools. This digital divide is only going to increase the knowledge gap among the haves and have-nots which is going to be a gross injustice to the marginalized children.
Acquiring education is the primary necessity for the children of the disadvantaged since it has the ability to liberate them from the clutches of their socio-economic backwardness. It acts as an emancipatory tool that allows them to register their rightful space in the power structure which is heavily dominated by the cultural elite. The democracy’s promise of inclusive education is going to be at further risk because of this unequal distribution of the educational resources. The non-availability of personal computers, smartphones, high-speed internet facilities, electricity supply, private spaces to attend classes are the major deformities for the children of the suffering communities that hold them back in this uneven race. The flaunting slogans of ‘digital India’ is at public display now, where a larger population of children’s future is being depended on the tools that they don’t possess. This digital divide might unlink them from accessing basic education.
Many proponents of Technology had predicted that the advancement of technology will annihilate the social and economic differences among the people from various sections of the society. In fact, they told that the technology will disintegrate the class, caste, gender and territorial differences. But, Braj Ranjan Mani, author of Knowledge and Power, says – ‘No technology can liberate the oppressed unless they are driven by the ethics of inclusiveness as the measure of human progress’. In order to create an egalitarian society, the necessity of inclusivity is the primary component. Since the technology is being owned and controlled by the elite, it is failing to bridge this gap between knowledge-rich and knowledge-poor. The corporate schools, with their profit motives, moving ahead with their online classes, is a serious failure of the state in encouraging an exclusionary practice. When the people in power are being backed by the corporate entities, then the state ignores its duty in providing justice to the most needy. Since the stakeholders of the corporate schools are well equipped or prioritised to equip with Information and Communication Technological tools, there is a superhighway for the progress of the children of the digital elite unlike the digital poor.
Taking a deep look at the present academic situation, the transformational goal of the education is totally at stake leaving behind the oppressed groups only to shun them away to further oppression. The ruling class’s lip service to justice and inclusiveness has to be materialized in reorganizing society and education on a democratic line.
Mr. Shiva Thrishul teaches media studies to under graduate students at Bhavan’s Vivekanada Degree College, Hyderabad. With an MA from University of Hyderabad from Department of Communication, he is pursuing his Phd from Osmania University now. His research interests are Education, Film Studies, Caste and Gender.