-The Indian Express Although there has been a lot of public discussion on digital modes of education for school children, online and video classes catered largely to urban or educated elite populations whose children went to private schools. In India, school closures post the spread of the pandemic started as early as March 2020. As months went by, concerns increased: Would learning levels drop, existing inequalities deepen? The Annual Status of Education...

-The Indian Express Nearly three-fourth of the population depends on government facilities; of the 2.60% who suffer from chronic illnesses, most have diabetes. # Two lakh children remain “out of school”, including 64,813 due to “financial constraints”. # Over six lakh between 0-6 years are outside the net of anganwadis, which cover less than half of Delhi’s pregnant women. # Over 63% people use buses for commuting, while only 6% depend on the flagship...

-The Hindu Evidence of significant disparity in access to online schooling during COVID-19 Schools across the country have now been closed for six months due to COVID-19, but this means vastly different things for different people. For the child in urban Himachal Pradesh, where Internet penetration is higher than 70%, it likely means online schooling, Zoom classes and digital textbooks. For the child in rural Odisha, where less than 6% of households...

-Hindustan Times Digital divide: Students who, in theory, have access to e-teaching will have to depend on inconvenient methods such as mobile The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the education sector globally. Classes have been suspended to enforce social distancing and educational institutions, from schools to universities, have shifted to online methods of teaching and evaluation. As the number of cases continues to rise, there is no certainty about when normalcy will be...

Huge sums of money are allocated for the rural and agrarian sectors by the Union Government in its annual budget every year, and rightly so. But in the absence of an adequate number of officials in rural areas, can the various schemes and programmes of the government be implemented properly? We will find the answer if we think about this issue deeply and the answer that would emerge should bother...