Are the Inequalities in Education Ending with the Pandemic’s End? Findings from West Bengal

Gargi Mondal and Soumayan Dutta | March 01, 2022 | Published Online

The dreadful pandemic had a far-reaching impact on every section of society including students. With the imposition of strict lockdowns by the state as a way to curb the pandemic, the entire economy was subjected to an unprecedented shock which caused a massive decline in employment and purchasing power of the people. The economic indicators including the GDP or the national income are representative of the severity of the crisis. As we still struggle to cope with the loss, the common people of the country are looking forward to receiving as much aid from the state as possible. Similarly, in between Alpha, Beta, Delta, Omicron, and various other sub-variants, the students of this country have been looking forward to the reopening of the schools and returning to their natural habitat of classes, playgrounds, and interactive teaching and learning. Unfortunately, the mental distress and the detachment from the formal education of the students are secondary concerns for the state. 

This article is an attempt to articulate the pertinent problems with regard to the state of education in West Bengal and the perpetuating inequality brought in by the digitization of education. The public policies for COVID curtailment were key determinants of the state of education of the country, and therefore, the question arises, were the policies implemented by the state and the nation capable of addressing inequality?

Digital Divide and Ownership of Smartphones in the Families

As we passed through the first wave of the pandemic, the educational institutions continued to remain shut. Digital platforms like Google Meet, Zoom, and others quickly took the shape of an alternative to the physical classroom. Even though statistics indicate that the number of students possessing laptops or smartphones was less than 20%, the state and the educational institutions turned a blind eye towards the crisis of the majority of the students. A report from NSSO in 2018 found that the percentage of students having access to the internet is as low as 19%. 

These numbers reflect the periphery of the perpetuating inequality that has amplified in education in the last two years. The students from marginalized backgrounds have been deprived of any kind of education in the past two years. Moving ahead from accessibility to affordability, we find that amidst the loss of income and severe economic crisis, the families of the school and college-going students had to bear the costs of expensive internet data packs without receiving any kind of aid from the state. The students attending government schools had to bear a greater burden where the percentage of students owning smartphones or other devices is lesser than the cohort of students attending private schools. As indicated in the ASER 2021, the percentage of private school students owning smartphones is 81.4% whereas the number is 64.5% for students attending government schools.

As we started adapting to the new norms of living and the massive digitization, there was an apparent rise in the percentage of families owning smartphones from 2018 to 2021 but the numbers in West Bengal were significantly lower than the national average. In the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER 2021), 59% of the students had ownership of at least one smartphone whereas the national average was 67%. This means that 4-5 out of every 10 students in the state did not have access to smartphones to attend online classes and they continued to be deprived of their fundamental right to education for the past two years. 

Further, ownership of at least one smartphone is not the end of the conundrum of this digital inequality. The ownership and the availability of these devices for educational purposes are not correlated. The ASER 2021 brings out some striking figures showing that even with the ownership of one smartphone in the family, only 13% of the students were able to use it for their educational purposes. Moreover, 46% of the students having at least one smartphone in the family never had the opportunity to use it for classes in West Bengal.

The ownership of these devices is far from being the indicator of access to education but is the bare minimum for the students to be able to attend online classes. The inequality in this kind of educational system is multi-layered and students have to pass through a number of stages to actually learn from this process of education. The recent national budget also reflects the state’s negligence towards this critical problem of digital inequality. 

How are the learning outcomes getting affected?

Investment in education is an investment for the future. Measuring learning outcomes is a robust method to understand where our future is headed. In the last 3 years, the ability to comprehend the basic level of lessons has decreased drastically, which proves that it is not enough that a student is exposed to formal education; there must enabling factors in order to learn and grasp lessons imparted and grasp quickly enough. West Bengal has traditionally been in the league of leaders when it comes to enrolling children for formal education. Contrary to the trend and belief of private schools gradually extending their footprint, we see the enrolment rate of children in government schools has increased across all age groups. For the age group, 6-14, the enrolment rate in government schools have increased from 88.1% to 91.5%. Whereas overall dropout rate has fallen by 1% and stands at 1%. In fact, enrolment initiatives across all age groups in West Bengal have been steadily on the rise for the last 15 years. But how has the learning outcome been?

ASER 2021 on Rural West Bengal shows that there has been a significant fall in learning outcomes in 2021 compared to 2018, across age groups. Most affected students are from the very formative stage – aged 6 to 14. Although there has been ups and downs in the past in terms of the learning rate, such a sharp decline is unforeseen. This can only be attributed to the havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Only 53% of std. II students are able to read or comprehend a word in 2021, against 66% in 2018. The trend continues till std. V. The trend indicates the wide-open gap fuelled by the digital divide. The environment to enable a student to interact with peers, constantly be in each other’s touch and most of all, ease of access to study materials has all been snatched away with prolonged and forceful closure of schools in West Bengal. Almost 67% of students from std. VI or VII are not able to do even std. II level arithmetic operations like subtraction or division. There is a 10% decline in recognizing single-digit numbers for students from Std. I, whereas the ability to do std. V level division/subtraction stands at a dismal 26%. 

A sustained effort and plan to recruit full-time and eligible teachers in government-run and government-aided schools has been disrupted since 2012. Although the rate of enrolment tries to tell a different story, at the end of the day what matters is the quality of students and quality of learning outcome. The dearth of student-friendly policies from the government is forcing the future of West Bengal to a point of no return. There has to be a unanimous voice raised from within the academia and the larger parts of society, to restore faith in the formal education system.

About Author

Gargi Mondal and Soumayan Dutta are Research Associates with the Indian Researcher

Publisher’s Acknowledgement

Indian Researcher acknowledges Jaikishan Patel for the preview image.