Beating Bharat's Edtech Blues

On the other side of the billion-dollar edtech boom are children who have been unable to access the most basic forms of online education, and people who have been trying to bridge the digital divide

- DIVYA J SHEKHAR

Renuka is silent for a long time before cautiously saying that she wants to study to become a doctor. Standing outside her classroom at the Kannada-medium Ramagondanahalli (RG Halli) government school in Bengaluru, the 12-year-old is confident that no dream is big enough for her. Her sixth grader friends Rehana, Lasya and Anitha also have similar high aspirations.

Aspirations, which belie the difficult realities of their lives, and those of most of their peers at the school, where 70 percent students belong to migrant families. Their parents are daily-wage earners, construction workers, ragpickers or domestic helpers with an average monthly income of less than ₹15,000. Almost 60 percent of Renuka’s friends have either never been to school before, or had been out of school before rejoining.

When the pandemic hit a year ago in March, Rehana’s father, a construction worker, lost his livelihood and decided to migrate to his hometown in Gulbarga temporarily before returning to Bengaluru. By May, the school procured smartphones through a community donation drive. Teachers started sharing lessons through WhatsApp, conducting reading sessions and one-on-one training over phone calls. Parents were required to come in at least once a week to school to collect worksheets and library books.

But there were other challenges. Renuka, for instance, is the eldest of three siblings. Her mother, a domestic help, and her father, a helper to a truck driver, were at home through most of last year. This meant that when Renuka sat down to study, having five people in the same small room made it impossible for her to concentrate.