ASER 2023 confirms the growing embrace of digital technologies by India's rural youth, setting the stage for the harvest of digital dividends. EPISODE #160
An obvious and yet startling statistical report that the Covid pandemic has been responsible for the sudden increase in ownership of smartphones and the teenagers along with children, becoming adept at using the gadget. The internet availability at affordable costs have further emboldened the youth in the entire country to use smartphones for education, commercial transactions and information, thereby increasing the speed of communication and ease of doing business. General awareness and level of confidence amongst the weaker sections of Indian society has also increased. This is definitely a silver lining to the cloud of the pandemic. Very informative and important article. Thank you Anil.
Thanks a lot for covering the changing face of the rural youth. I remember reading in the newspaper last week that most of the rural teenagers were struggling to read a Standard 2 textbook in their vernacular language. I was really intrigued as to why this problem has arisen because almost all the students as well as teachers speak in their mother tongue all the time. One can understand their struggle with a foreign language but why the vernacular?
It's heartening to note that most of the rural youth have access to a smart phone and they know how to use it. I can't say whether this reduces the gap between the rich and the poor but it definitely does reduce the gap between the urban and rural. I think access to the smartphone is one of the main reasons why there was no mass scale dropout during the Covid pandemic. I know for a fact that my maid invested in a smart phone so that her children could attend online classes without any problems.
At the end of the day one has to appreciate the efforts of the government in increasing the rural optical fibre connectivity which made all this possible.
Thanks Anil for bringing succinctly the voluminous information from ASER !
A mention by you that there is exodus from private schools has serious implications . Whether such shift is to Government School or to schools abroad call for deeper look . Also it may be interesting to explore the reasons thereof . Has the quality of education in such schools gone down ? Or have these become unaffordable ?
Your love for digitisation is well known my friend !
Good questions about the exodus. Let me chase them down with Pratham and get back to you with another piece. My sense is that private schools became unaffordable in the aftermath of covid-19. The devastation to household economies was unimaginable. If the government had not come up with the free food programme we would be staring at a humanitarian disaster.
And yes, thank you for remembering my passion for the wonders of the digital economy.
An obvious and yet startling statistical report that the Covid pandemic has been responsible for the sudden increase in ownership of smartphones and the teenagers along with children, becoming adept at using the gadget. The internet availability at affordable costs have further emboldened the youth in the entire country to use smartphones for education, commercial transactions and information, thereby increasing the speed of communication and ease of doing business. General awareness and level of confidence amongst the weaker sections of Indian society has also increased. This is definitely a silver lining to the cloud of the pandemic. Very informative and important article. Thank you Anil.
Dear Anil
Thanks a lot for covering the changing face of the rural youth. I remember reading in the newspaper last week that most of the rural teenagers were struggling to read a Standard 2 textbook in their vernacular language. I was really intrigued as to why this problem has arisen because almost all the students as well as teachers speak in their mother tongue all the time. One can understand their struggle with a foreign language but why the vernacular?
It's heartening to note that most of the rural youth have access to a smart phone and they know how to use it. I can't say whether this reduces the gap between the rich and the poor but it definitely does reduce the gap between the urban and rural. I think access to the smartphone is one of the main reasons why there was no mass scale dropout during the Covid pandemic. I know for a fact that my maid invested in a smart phone so that her children could attend online classes without any problems.
At the end of the day one has to appreciate the efforts of the government in increasing the rural optical fibre connectivity which made all this possible.
Thanks Anil for bringing succinctly the voluminous information from ASER !
A mention by you that there is exodus from private schools has serious implications . Whether such shift is to Government School or to schools abroad call for deeper look . Also it may be interesting to explore the reasons thereof . Has the quality of education in such schools gone down ? Or have these become unaffordable ?
Your love for digitisation is well known my friend !
Best regards
Dear Balesh,
Thank you so much for your thoughts.
Good questions about the exodus. Let me chase them down with Pratham and get back to you with another piece. My sense is that private schools became unaffordable in the aftermath of covid-19. The devastation to household economies was unimaginable. If the government had not come up with the free food programme we would be staring at a humanitarian disaster.
And yes, thank you for remembering my passion for the wonders of the digital economy.
Look forward to your continued participation.
Best
Anil