Lok Sabha Question No. 2055 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2023-03-13
Subject: Digital Literacy for Tribal Children under NEP
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Prabhubhai Nagarbhai Vasava

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA

## UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2055 ANSWERED ON 13/03/2023

## Digital Literacy for Tribal Children under NEP

## 2055. SHRI PARBHUBHAI NAGARBHAI VASAVA:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

(a) the technological initiatives that are being taken under New Education Policy for reaching out to the tribal children and bridging the digital divide;

(b)  the  details  of  efforts  being  made  by  the  Government  for  increasing  digital  literacy  and empowerment of tribals; and

(c) the strategy chalked out by the Government for ensuring availability of affordable computing devices to tribal children thus bridging the digital divide under NEP?

## ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

## (SMT ANNPURNA DEVI)

(a) to (c): The  National  Education  Policy  (NEP)-2020  has  stated  in  Para  4.23  that  digital literacy,  coding,  and  computational  thinking  are  imperatives  for  curriculum.  NEP  2020  in  para 23.6  (Chapter  23)  has  mentioned  the  promotion  of  regional  languages  and  development  of eContent  by  all  States  in  all  regional  languages.  Also,  para  23.6  of  NEP  2020  mentions  the availability of educational software in all major Indian languages to make it accessible to a wide range of users including students in remote areas and Divyang students.

A comprehensive initiative called PM eVIDYA has been initiated as part of Atma Nirbhar Bharat  Abhiyaan  on  17th  May,  2020,  which  unifies  all  efforts  related  to  digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education. The eContents/programme uploaded under PM eVidya  are  based  on  NCERT  curriculum.  Besides  this,  many  states  have  also  offered  and uploaded  their  e-Contents  for  PM  eVIDYA,  in  line  with  the  curriculum  of  their  education boards/SCERTs. The initiative includes:

- DIKSHA (one nation, one digital platform) is the nation's digital infrastructure for providing quality e-content for school education in states/UTs and QR coded Energized Textbooks for all grades are available on it.
- One earmarked Swayam Prabha TV channel per class from 1 to 12 (one class, one channel).
- Extensive use of Radio, Community radio and CBSE Podcast- Shiksha Vani.
- Special  e-content  for  visually  and  hearing  impaired  developed  on  Digitally  Accessible Information System (DAISY) and in sign language on NIOS website/ YouTube.

All these schemes/programmes are available to all the students across the nation.

Education is in the concurrent list of the Constitution and majority of the schools, colleges and  universities  are  under  the  domain  of  respective  State  and  UT  Governments.  The  state governments have been advised to act based on the situation prevailing at every place to meet the demands of students and teachers for providing them with the digital access required for teaching learning digitally. As part of ICT and Digital Initiatives component of Samagra Shiksha, ICT Labs and Smart Class rooms are sanctioned in the Government Schools having classes VI to XII. For setting up ICT Lab , non-recurring grant of up to Rs. 6.40 lakh per school and recurring grant of upto Rs. 2.40 lakh per school per annum for a period of 5 years is sanctioned. For setting up Smart Class rooms, non-recurring grant of Rs. 2.40 lakh per school and recurring grant of Rs. 0.38 lakh is sanctioned.

The State/UT wise data regarding availability of infrastructure like internet, electricity and computers is available at serial No. 33 (Id 3106), 2 (Id 3016) and 34 (Id 3109) respectively under the sub-heading Infrastructure of which the UDISE++ link has been provided herewith:

https://dashboard.udiseplus.gov.in/#/reportDashboard/sReport

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