Around 27% of the students in India don't have access to laptops or smartphones for attending online classes.
This was discovered in a survey done by NCERT with over 34,000 participants covering teachers, students, parents and school principals.
Besides, the survey also found that around 28% students and parents are of the opinion that power outage is one of the major hurdles to teaching and learning.
A PTI report quoted NCERT as saying, "Approximately 27 per cent of the students mentioned the non-availability of smartphones and laptops. The maximum number of stakeholders have opted for mobile phones as a medium for teaching-learning during the COVID-19 period."
It further said, "About 36 per cent of the students used the textbooks and other books available with them. Laptops were the second most favoured option amongst teachers and principals. Television and radio were the least utilized devices for the teaching-learning in the pandemic situation. The absence of enriched interaction between the teacher and the students was one of the reasons as identified by the stakeholders."
Highlighting the problem of lack of physical text books for students, NCERT added, "About half of the students stated that they did not have the school textbooks. Although the e-text books are available on NCERT website and DIKSHA, the probable reasons behind this feedback are that students are used to studying from the hardcopy of the textbooks, there is lack of awareness regarding the availability of the e-textbook and paucity of devices with students and teachers."
