Sushil, an eleven-year-old boy, sat at the Nehru Place Junction with his eyes glued to the phone. At a few minutes past 7 in the morning, the rest of his family still slept inside mosquito nets, some tossing and turning as the quiet of the dawn dissipated and more cars gathered at the crossing.
Sushil was watching reels on Instagram. “Mera bhai mujhe raat ko apna phone deta hai, aur subah le leta hai. Usske beech mein main videos dekhta hoon.” (My brother lends me his phone at night and takes it back in the morning. I use it in between to watch videos). In a green tank top, with ruffled hair, Sushil seemed to be enjoying the trendy reels running on the phone.
Like Sushil, Ishika, a daughter of an UrbanCompany technician, gets internet access only occasionally. When she can, she spends 2 hours in a cyber cafe in RK Puram, Delhi. “I want to get into the National Institute of Fashion Technology, but they require us to submit a portfolio. So I am trying to create one online. But I don’t have a laptop at home, so I have to work at the cafe.”
In the present day, with digital devices widely prevalent, screen time has increased for everyone. If, for people like Sushil and Ishika, the concern is getting online, at the other end of the spectrum are parents from higher-income homes who believe their kids have too much access to technology. In fact, in an interview with GQ, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook said, "Kids are born digital, they’re digital kids now. And it is, I think, really important to set some hard rails around it.”
However, kids from lower-income households, either have limited access to the internet and no proper push from within the family or lack concrete support by administrative institutions that otherwise encourage the integration of futuristic technology into the way forward for India.
The case of a permanent digital divide
40% of Indian students do not use technology to learn. This was highlighted by a Central Foundation’s Bharat Survey for EdTech report. The survey which included 9867 students also found that YouTube is the most accessed app for youngsters.
However, questions remain on the accessibility of these digital tools and whether children of lower-income groups can extract learning from online platforms in the same way. Ekalavya Foundation’s CEO, Raju Kendre highlights the gap in higher education and eventually employment and traces it back to the absence of technology in most non-urban spaces. “In the Maharashtrian villages or small towns that we work in, there are still only a couple of computers that all households share to use. It’s only recently that younger adults have been able to buy Rs 10-15000 worth of smartphones,” Kendre said.
Ekalavya Foundation provides mentorship, training and guidance to first-generation learners from marginalized communities, to pursue higher education from premier Higher Education Institutes. According to Kendre, the digital divide further fragments families that can afford to supplement their children’s education with EdTech and AI, from those who might still struggle to buy 1GB data packs.
“Knowledge of futuristic technologies like AI or online learning tools is incomprehensible in many parts of the country, restricting some youth to low-skilled work or manual labour. High-paying companies nowadays want sufficient experience in tech but that rules out children who go to schools that have teachers not properly trained to write emails.”
What’s the way forward? According to Kendre, “We are currently distributing laptops to lower-income families who have children interested in higher education.” Eklavya, a Yavatmal-based organisation, works with first-generation learners. “But independent actors can only do so much. The primary push has to come from the Centre.”
Tech consumption differs across households
To highlight the contrast in technological awareness in children from varying income households, Decode spoke to twenty-two children from across multiple Indian cities about the style of content they consume.
Raghav, a 15-year-old from Gurgaon, is obsessed with the VR headset and controller that he received for his birthday earlier this year. A ninth-grader in school, Raghav enjoys his classes but finds himself intently waiting for school to finish for the day so that he can rush back home to his games. And when he isn’t on his gaming console, he has tuned into gaming live streams on YouTube. His parents, mindful of the detrimental effects of screen time on children, have capped his daily usage to an hour a day.
Rishav, another 17-year old from Kolkata, has been learning about cryptocurrency and Fintech online, by watching Instagram content creators. His parents, encouraged by the self-teaching, have taken it upon themselves to enrol Rishav on a FinTech course online. Rishav’s father, Subroto said, “As parents, the onus is on us to equip them with the right knowledge and teach them the importance of savings and investments. Especially when the world is moving fast ahead towards digital currencies.”
Ananya, another 17-year-old from Mumbai, has been watching Taneesha Mirwani (@taneesho) for half a year. “Her content is so funny, especially the reels with her dad. I want to do skits with my mother as well.” In fact, she is happy her parents are supportive of her desire to work on Instagram and that they accept it as a stable profession now.
14-year-old Delhi student, Pratyush, “I watch videos of people teaching on YouTube. They have animations and use programs to explain things, which makes it much easier to understand.”
The common factor in these children’s consumption patterns is how easily the internet is accessible to them. However, is the reception of such knowledge spread uniformly among those who have no exposure to such educational content?
Suraj, an Uber driver of 3 years, has a son who is a Delhi University aspirant. “I was not able to get him a laptop, but I managed to find a tablet.” Suraj’s son Nandan wants to study physics and wants to do a crash course online before joining DU. “He can finally attend the course classes on the tablet.”
During the lockdown, Salma, an 8-year-old from Gwalior and her mother who works as a house help for a family in Faridabad, had to start living in the family’s home. It is during this time that Salma first got introduced to online learning. The family, compassionate about the closure of schools due to the pandemic, registered Salma with Class Monitor. Class Monitor is an EdTech home learning platform, designed for young learners in the age group of 0-8 Years.
“Class Monitor has great home learning kits for 6-8 year-olds and Salma took a special interest in their Hindi learning kit,” said Sudha, the mother in the family. “My son Manan spends most of his time on his laptop, discovering new interests. But exposure to learning between children with and without the internet is disproportionate,” Sudha added.
Especially in the climate of ever-growing generative AI, some children remain entirely in the dark from ever coming face-to-face with it. In fact, Kay Firth-Butterfield, World Economic Forum’s AI Head says, “There’s still a long way to go before low- and middle-income families can fully harness the potential of AI.” According to her, “Inclusivity and diversity are critical, not just when it comes to ensuring that datasets are representative, but in forming the definitions of ethical AI.”
A Quess report proves, “Demand for specific technology skills is consistently rising across non-tech industries as well as the global captives of multinational companies in India.” The intent to hire professionals with these /skills will continue to rise as tech and non-tech companies digitize to promote their business growth and innovation. Demand for professionals adept with niche tech skills related to Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Big Data, etc. also holds a considerable share of total demand.
In fact, the services sector is expected to open up 6.4 million jobs for young professionals by 2030, but due to the higher demand for technical proficiency, International Labour Organisation advises, “a lot of work to be done if we are to prepare young people for such work.”
Sonal Kapoor, Founder of Protsahan India Foundation, believes that for the children who have fallen off the margin, there needs to be a "continuum of care" so that they can be brought into the mainstream. Education for these children needs to be linked to arts and system linkages as well as, tech-based schemes. "We also help strengthen their families' social protection, so that they don't end up being institutionalised."
According to Kapoor, our efforts should not end at enrolling lower-income group children in schools. These children who have not seen any other family member go to school, will not have the retention span or supportive environment for schooling at home.
There is also a presumption of resources in EdTech for children. "In our conversation around AI, we predict education to change for the better. But parents who cannot put food on the table, also cannot think about a laptop or a tablet to reinforce learning in their children."
Protsahan is based in Delhi, India with the mission of care, rehabilitation, healing and systemic reintegration of historically marginalized and disadvantaged children and girls who've faced sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV).
Institutional support for kids in no-screen households
Schools around the country have jumped on the EdTech bandwagon in the last few years, with encouragement from the Centre and its vision for ‘inclusive education’. The launch of Applications for G-20 Digital Innovation Alliance (DIA), is emblematic of the government’s push for leveraging digital growth and innovation.
The last two years also witnessed innovation in removing access and usage barriers for children from low-income families. In March, Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan claimed that only 25% of Indian government schools have internet connectivity. To solve this problem, NGOs like Teach For India have created device libraries where four or five children can borrow a device and learn collectively. Teach For India plans to extend this model by creating device libraries in schools when in-person classes resume.
There are efforts so far made by state governments to integrate AI in government education with the likes of Andhra Pradesh govt. constituting a high-level committee to enable and prepare the students studying in government schools to get high-end global jobs in futuristic technologies. CM Jagan Mohan Reddy claimed his government would be adding modern concepts like Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, language modules, and ChatGPT to the syllabus.
States like Haryana are providing personal learning devices to all children in grades 8 to 12. Haryana also launched a Digital Saathi (‘friend’) programme for phone-based learning facilitated by community volunteers.
While presenting the education budget, Delhi’s former Finance Minister Kailash Gahlot announced that schools will collaborate with industries to develop professional skills for children in the schools themselves, through ‘Schools of Applied Learning.’ “We must equip Delhi’s children for the 21st Century-a digital era, wherein computer skills are essential for all. To further strengthen our children’s competency for this new age, 20 computers each will be provided across 350 schools of the Delhi Govt,” he added.
Raju Kendre believes, “Any shift in education and employability of children can only be brought by consolidated efforts by the government. The government’s push for digitisation will need to take into account the circumstances that lower-income communities face.”
Tech companies’ greater attention to tech and innovative skills, becomes tricky for young job seekers who haven’t had institutional technology support. Some even remain beyond the reach of the ever-growing EdTech and booming tech spaces.
Sonal Kapoor says, "As a society, we have a remarkable tolerance for inequity." Funders presume that schemes reach the grassroots and that every child is equipped with the resources necessary for tech-driven education.
So we’re left to wonder what’s in store for children like Sushil who get no more than a few hours to familiarize themselves with the internet, and even still only find themselves on social media apps. “Main school nahi jaana chahta. Mujhe dancing pasand hai toh main dance videos dekhta hoon,” Sushil smiled. (I don’t like going to school. I like dancing so I watch dance videos online.)