‘Hope govt spends more on education sector to bridge digital divide’
The pandemic gutted India’s economy and hurt millions of workers, artists, professionals, and homemakers. Ahead of the Union budget, HT speaks to a cross-section of people to document their hopes and wishes from the exercise
NEW DELHI: The year 2020 was challenging for Monami Basu, an assistant professor of economics at Kamala Nehru college in Delhi. After teaching for 16 years, she saw the education sector shift en-masse online because of the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving both students and teachers struggling due to a paucity of expertise and lack of resources.
Her college shut in March, when the government clamped a nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the virus. Students went back home, and teachers like Basu were forced to quickly adapt her lessons to online teaching. But it was nowhere near the experience of physical classes, and Basu said at least 4-5 students in every class could not attend classes or appear in exams due to a lack of devices and connectivity.
“The classes had become frustrating even for those who had devices due to the lack of expertise in virtual teaching-learning. Teaching online is also not easy,” she said.
Covid-19 taught Basu that virtual classes cannot replace physical classes. “Howsoever much of an effort we put into our teaching, it’s not even 15% of what I can communicate to my students in the classroom. So, just allocating funds for virtual education is not enough. What’s needed is the allocation of funds for more colleges, more classrooms, more infrastructure, internet connectivity for marginalised students, and devices for students and even teachers,” she said.
Offering an example, she said her course this year featured a paper called data analysis that could be taught only on laptops with updated software. “Many of our students did not have laptops and attended classes on smart phones. We had a hard time teaching and taking exams on that subject,” she said.
Delhi University campuses remain closed. Cases spiked in other educational institutes that opened late last year, such as Iitmadras, which saw 100 infections days after it allowed students back on its premises in December.
The Centre allocated ₹39,466 crore for higher education for financial year 2020-21, a 3% increase over the allocation for 2019-20. In light of the pandemic, Basu believes the government needs to provide funds in the Union budget for students from marginalised sections to get access to online classes and compete in the virtual world. “Most students in central universities are from poor sections and the government needs to provide them facilities for virtual teaching,” she said.
Last year’s budget had some allocation for virtual classes and mass online degree courses. “But in spite of that, when this year forced virtual classes and online degree courses on us, we did not see any great improvement in facilities and infrastructure,” she said.
A Ph D from Iit-delhi with specialisation in microeconomics, Basu said 10% of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be allocated to education, in line with the spending in most developed countries. Currently, the figure stands at about 4%.
“The total allocation to central universities increased by 10% in last year’s budget but most of it was allocated under the HEFA (Higher Education Funding Agency), which is a loan and has to be returned. This will directly lead to a fee hike, which would increase stress on already economically distressed students,” she said. HEFA is a joint venture by the Union ministry of education, the government of India, and Canara bank to offer 10-year loans to public institutes for infrastructure and redevelopment work.