School Children’s Online and Offline Learning, or SCHOOL, survey, overseen by a group of economists including Jean Dreze and Reetika Khera, shines a spotlight on the biggest losers of lockouts: the poor.
At the family level, there is reasonably high access to smartphones: 77% in urban areas, and 51% in villages, just what one would expect in a country witnessing a digital revolution of sorts amid crashing handset and data prices.
Yet, even among households that possess internet-enabled devices, the proportion of children who’re regularly studying online dwindles to 31% in cities and 15% in villages.
The wage-earner’s claim on the phone clearly outweighs its utility as an educational device. “The school has been closed ever since the