Covid-19: How tech can ensure equity in education The return of Amit Shah to the national stage
Blended online learning can remove barriers, and take education to girls, marginalised groups and remote areas While his return marks the return of politics, as HM, Shah must provide a healing touch to the citizenry
Every day at 9 am, my daughter sits in front of a laptop in her school uniform and attends classes over Zoom. Even her extracurricular activities, such as music competitions and debates, are organised over the video-conferencing app. But for sports and in-person interactions, there is little she misses out on. Her coaching institution, too, has moved to an online platform.
However, not everyone is so lucky. Not far from my house, children in ragged clothes wander aimlessly, often crowding around a new customer, hoping for a few coins. The municipal schools are closed, and hence there is little to engage their attention.
Between the two extremes of the elite private and government schools lie many lowcost private and public schools which suffer from varying level of deficiencies in education technology and pedagogy. As per Unesco’s estimates, over 280 million children in India have been impacted by school closures due to Covid-19.
The government has succeeded in getting children into school with nearly 100% enrolment, but one-fourth drop out after class 8, and over half after the class 10. The drop-out rates for girls and those from the marginalised sections are higher. The learning outcomes, whether measured by the National Achievement Survey 2017 or the Annual Status of Education Report 2019, haven’t shown much improvement.
Even lower middle class parents have been taking their children out of government schools and putting them in low-cost private schools. Kendriya Vidyalayas and Navodaya Vidyalayas aside, government school systems suffer from poor information technology (IT) infrastructure and It-trained teachers. The School Education Quality Index (SEQI) Report 2019 by NITI Aayog indicates that in states such as Kerala too, half the elementary schools do not have computer-aided learning, and even in the best-performing states such as Tamil Nadu, one-third of secondary schools do not have computer labs. The survey includes private schools, too.
The usual explanation of poor students in cities and rural areas not having computers/smart mobile devices and high-speed broadband has often been cited for the inability of government schools to get on to the blended online learning bandwagon.
However, every third person now has a smartphone, and rural India has 227 million active Internet users — a clear lead of 10% over urban India. Over the years, there has also been a push by the government towards technology-enabled learning; self-learning online portals such as Swayam, e-pathshala and Diksha have come up and school books are available online. Doordarshan, too, has started special education broadcasts, which are also available on Youtube. Government school teachers use Whatsapp to send small videos and exercise sheets.
The effectiveness of these interventions in enhancing learning outcomes, though, remains uncertain. Research says that the academic content delivered through a passive one-way communication does not engage a student’s curious mind. On the other hand, active learning can lead to improved cognitive outcomes.
Additional factors such as unavailability of separate rooms for children as well as noisy surroundings in homes have been mentioned.
But given these extraordinary times, where physical presence is not possible, the blended online delivery of school lectures by teachers remains the most effective way. Results from J-PAL’S Educational Technology Evidence Review from 126 studies on the role of technology in education indicate that blended learning, ie. combining online and in-person instruction can deliver as good an outcome as in-person class experience. This, however, requires teachers to be trained in technology-enabled active learning pedagogy.
The State could even have a component for tech-enabled learning as part of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan for IT infrastructure, devices, teaching-learning material, teacher training and engaging quality teachers in the district. If what gets measured gets done, the NITI Aayog and ministry of human resource development will have to increase weightage for computer-aided learning and computer labs in SEQI, which allocates 10 out of nearly 1,000 grade points. Given that technology tools often make it possible to collect data on how something is working, the National University of Educational Planning and Administration could be asked to undertake evaluations, which help policymakers and administrators make better decisions regarding investment in education technology solutions.
In India, where the availability of quality teachers, away from capitals/district headquarters and especially in subjects such as math and sciences, remains a challenge, blended online learning has a distinctive advantage of removing the physical barrier between places where teachers are available and where they are needed.
It can also help take education to girls, to those from marginalised sections and those in remote areas. It may not solve the problems of the school education system, which requires incentives for schools and teachers, autonomy to principals, well-functioning school management committees, teacher accountability, and management systems including transparent transfer policies. However, it could address India’s most persistent challenge of ensuring quality education in government schools and take us closer to Sustainable Development Goal 4 of ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education.
In the nasty and cruel world of social media, even the second most powerful man in the country is not spared. When Union home minister Amit Shah was conspicuous by his absence in the first two months of the Covid-19 lockdown, there were even distressing questions raised about his health, eventually forcing the home minister to issue a clarification that all was well. In the last month, as the country slowly unlocks, all doubts have been put to rest: Shah is well and truly back.
He has given a slew of well-choreographed interviews on the first anniversary of Modi 2.0. He has addressed virtual rallies in Bihar, Odisha and West Bengal. He has closely monitored the Rajya Sabha elections, especially in his home state of Gujarat and staved off a crisis in Bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-led Manipur. Most significantly, he has virtually taken over as the Big Boss of the Covid-19-hit national capital.
In a sense, the return of Shah marks the unlocking of politics. For almost three months during the lockdown, it wasn’t just the country’s economy that was in a lockdown; it was also its politics. With the mostly-timid Opposition reduced to expressing its angst on Twitter, there seemed little space for raising issues of vital public interest. Neither Parliament nor scarcely a select or standing committee has met to address urgent matters. Yes, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi has held half-a-dozen meetings over video-conference with chief ministers but these cyberengagements cannot be a substitute for the cut-and-thrust of public debate. Where other coronavirus-affected democracies, most notably the United Kingdom, have ensured that open parliamentary debate is encouraged, India has chosen to impose a moratorium on its politics.
This willful disregard for any form of democratic dissent and discussion is dangerous. It allows a dominant party government to impose its will on the people, behind a veil of non-transparency and non-accountability. A serious national security challenge on the Sino-indian border in Ladakh has been wrapped up in secrecy and disingenuous wordplay. The tragedy of the dislocation of millions of migrant workers is blamed on state governments. The failure to prepare for a pandemic by boosting health infrastructure is again blamed on states. A faltering economy is put on pause mode but no industrialists (with one or two notable exceptions) can raise their voice. No details are provided to a Right to Information petition filed seeking information about the PM Cares Fund. Petrol and diesel prices are hiked 22 times in two months with no explanation. A 27-year-old Jamia Millia Islamia student activist is named as a prime conspirator in the Delhi riots but local political leaders linked to the ruling party are given a clean chit. A police officer arrested for allegedly helping terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir is granted bail because no charge-sheet is filed, but bail to human rights activists is furiously opposed.
In this ominous scenario of unbridled State power, re-enters Amit Shah. No other minister in Modi 2.0 has invested as much time and equity in keeping the political pot boiling as the home minister. From nullifying Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, pushing ahead with the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, driving the Ram Mandir agenda forward, Shah has provided the ideological muscle to the BJP’S Hindutva juggernaut. Not to forget his sharp and ruthless political instincts that have seen the BJP displace the Janata Dal-secular-congress government in Karnataka, engineer mass defections in Goa, topple the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, and now gradually break the Congress in Gujarat.
With Shah’s return to centre-stage, it would seem that the Modi government is preparing to shift gears once again and focus on the political management of a Covid-19struck nation. There is, for example, an election to be won in Bihar at the year-end and Shah’s poll organisation skills will be required to ensure what seems a near-inevitable triumph. There is an even bigger prize that awaits in West Bengal next year, the conquest of which Shah has made a personal mission of sorts. That in the midst of the pandemic and in a cyclone-ravaged state, Shah chose to launch a scathing attack on his great rival, Mamata Banerjee, is a sign that the gloves are now off once again.
Ironically, the home minister is expected to work closely with state governments during a national disaster, provide support and guidance to them, and ensure harmonious Centre-state relations. Shah’s personality trait is instinctively combative but a pandemic calls for a change in style, for co-operation and not confrontation. This is not a moment for further dividing a hyper-polarised society or seeking to rule by fear and intimidation. Whether a leader like Shah can reinvent himself is uncertain. The rules for good governance are very different from those for winning elections.
Already, in Delhi, there are suggestions that Shah is overseeing the Covid-19 fight by diktat with little consultation with the state government. Which might partly explain why so many unilateral decisions taken one day are hastily abandoned the very next. The home minister may have no love lost for Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal but this is a moment to set aside personal differences and work as a team. So far, in his political career, Shah has been a divisive figure; now he needs to become a unifying force by providing a healing touch to a traumatised citizenry.
Post-script: The only thing certain about Indian politics is that the future is uncertain. At the beginning of 2020, Shah and Kejriwal were engaged in one of the most acrimonious and polarised election campaigns the country has seen. Now, a virus has forced them to jointly inaugurate Covid-19 care centres as grim-faced, masked men!