Indian schools Digital Gap
Internet access at 66% Indian schools, digital gap among various states: U-DISE report
Less than 50 per cent of the schools surveyed had functional computers; accessible functional mobile phones for teaching purposes at 20 per cent.
About 66 per cent of schools in India lack access to the internet, with states such as Bihar and Mizoram having 92 and 90 per cent schools, respectively, in this category as per a Unified District Information System for Education plus (UDISE+) report for 2021–22.
The report, which is an Education ministry initiative to collate data about school education, shows that 80 to 85 per cent of schools lack internet access in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, West Bengal, Meghalaya, Odisha, Telangana, and Tripura.
Delhi and Lakshwadeep each have 100 percent schools with working computer facilities and 97.4 per cent schools with access to the internet. Delhi is also the only Union Territory (UT) to have 100 per cent of its schools with an internet connection. Other UT’s such as Chandigarh (98.7 per cent) and Puducherry (98.4 per cent) also perform well in this category.
At 94.6 per cent and 92 per cent, Kerala and Gujarat are the top-performing states in this respect. Gujarat is also the only state in the country where more government schools have internet access than private. (94.2 per cent and 89. 6 per cent, respectively).
However, the gap between government and private schools persists. While 59.6 per cent of the private and unaided schools and 53.1 percent of government-aided schools surveyed had internet access, only 24.2 per cent of government schools did so.
The report adds that less than 50 per cent of the schools surveyed had functional computers, with accessible functional mobile phones for teaching purposes just at 20 per cent.
The availability of smart classrooms is also low. Out of the 1.4 million schools in the country, only 2,22,155 have functional smart classrooms with digital or smart boards used for teaching. Out of its 3911 schools, Mizoram has only 25 schools with smart classrooms. Tamil Nadu has zero schools in this category. In what is indicative of a large gap between different regions in the country, West Bengal has 99.99 per cent schools with smart classrooms. Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, and Kerala also have more than 90% in this respect.
