Ever since the lockdown, the reported deaths in the media have largely been due to one or more of the following causes — coronavirus, exhaustion from walking long distances, crop failures, lack of food, and, more recently, suicides (accruing to mental illness and/or academic pressure among students).
According to NCRB data, an average of 28 students die by suicides every day in India. That’s about more than one student every hour. It is also well established that in most cases students die by suicide due to academic pressure. Umpteen local newspapers can be found which cover the news on board results with headlines criticizing schools which perform poorly and galvanizing students who top. This only aggravates the problem further.
However, in a new trend, students have been ostensibly dying by suicide due to the lack of digital resources required to attend online classes. Cases from Bengal, Assam, Punjab, and Kerala, etc. made it to local, national and international news while data on the total numbers have remained elusive as it is still developing.
In this light, especially given the current uncertainty around education, it makes for an intriguing inquiry to acknowledge factors affecting the accessibility to ‘online education’ and its consequences.
Inequality is a given in Indian society— class (income), caste, gender and geographic location (rural and urban) being some of the most commonly employed gauging attributes. These socio-economic inequalities have been the determining factors of accessibility to education and now, in the midst of the pandemic and ensuing lockdown, online education.
Based on the prevalence of an inherently patriarchal society across most classes (disadvantaged and privileged) and castes (all four varnas), the gap in education based on gender is likely to worsen further. However, it will affect the gender gap albeit differently for privileged class and caste than disadvantaged class and caste unless actively remedied with progressive reforms in policy and approach.
Given the social protocol that daughters go into another family after marriage and it is the sons who stay back to become the bread-earners, it is a popularly held belief, if not dictated explicitly in religious scriptures, to invest and further the education of son. As a consequence, daughters bear the brunt and are either enrolled in government schools or denied the opportunity to education altogether. However, almost uniformly, daughters are engaged in household chores.
In terms of online education, this translates into preferable access to digital resources to sons over daughters for attending online classes. Especially in joint families, prevalent in rural India, hierarchy dictates — fathers and uncles have access on a priority basis, followed by sons and then daughter (and working mothers and aunts, if any) — in the absence of multiple gadgets or an imbalanced user to gadget ratio.
In marginalized sections of society, especially in economically disadvantaged sections as a consequence of marginalized caste (Dalits), females are likely to face the double whammy of marginalized caste and/or class as well as gender. This double disadvantage has been evidently recorded in the suicide of the 14-year-old Dalit girl from Kerala. It serves as a reality check for civil society and policymakers alike.
The gender gap will likely be further aggravated due to the economic crisis consequential of unplanned and poorly implemented lockdown. Not just a withdrawal of girls from the education system but as the rural and marginalized sections collectively stare at the economic crisis, it will also be junking years of hard work and social awareness programs that were designed, implemented and invested in by civil society and government urging village elders and parents to send their girls to school in the first place.
As noted by Safeena Husain, founder of Educate Girls, to Devex, “By losing all the gains we have made in the last few years [educating girls], the impact will be immeasurable.”
Taking the cue from Bankathi village in Jharkhand, the governments at the state and centre need to formulate a policy which firstly addresses the problem of accessibility and the absolute uncertainty as regards to this entire year of education. Secondly, the government needs to ensure transparency and adequate representation of all stakeholders and their concerns in policy formulation. Thirdly, the government needs to amp up the awareness programs with thrust on education, especially girls’ education while simultaneously ensuring the economic support needed at the rural and grassroots, especially the marginalized sections to help them tide through the economic shortcomings due to the imposition of lockdown.
The need to extend counselling support to students has been evident even in the past. However, in the midst of a pandemic and lockdown, the students have been reeling under the pressure of academic uncertainty and increasing pressure. Counselling and mentoring support is desperately needed, and as such, relevant support should be made available via the existing network of schools (private and government) to reach out to the maximum number of students possible.
Not only does the government need to break its silence on where education is headed and address these issues, but collectively as a society, we need to actively change the popular narrative and shift the focus from ‘marks’ to promotion of well-being and learning.