Lok Sabha Question No. 70 (STARRED), answered on 2022-02-07
Subject: Online Education for Under Privileged and Rural Students
Ministry: Education
Asked by: Poonamben Hematbhai Maadam

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

## DEPARTMENT OF SCHOOL EDUCATION AND LITERACY

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. *70

## TO BE ANSWERED ON 7 th  FEBRUARY, 2022

## Online Education for Under Privileged and Rural Students

- *70. SHRIMATI POONAMBEN MAADAM: Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state: (a) whether the Government is planning to make online education more accessible to underprivileged and rural students and if so, the details thereof; (b)  whether the Government is planning to provide low-cost devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc.) and internet access to students, enabling the less privileged students to cope with the demands of online education; (c) if so, the details thereof; (d) whether the Government has made any assessment regarding loss of education among
- children with no access to internet and low-cost devices; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER MINISTER OF EDUCATION (SHRI DHARMENDRA PRADHAN)

Part (a) to (e)   A Statement is laid on the table of the House.

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## STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (A)  TO  (E)  OF  LOK  SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 70 ASKED BY SHRIMATI POONAMBEN MAADAM, HON'BLE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT REGARDING ONLINE EDUCATION FOR UNDER PRIVILEGED AND RURAL STUDENTS.

(a) To facilitate the online learning by all students a comprehensive initiative called PM eVIDYA has been initiated as part of AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan on 17th May, 2020, which unifies  all  efforts  related  to  digital/online/on-air  education  to  enable  multimode  access  to education. 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 in the public domain to all the students across the nation.

(b) & (c) ICT and Digital Initiatives component of Samagra Shiksha covering Government  and  Government  Aided  Schools  having  classes  VI  to  XII  provides  financial assistance for establishing ICT Lab and Smart Classrooms in schools. The nonrecurring/recurring  grant  under  'ICT  and  Digital  Initiatives'  for  schools  is  available  to  the States and UTs for following two options:

In first option, schools which have not availed the ICT facility earlier can either opt for ICT or smart classrooms. The component support digital boards, smart classrooms, virtual classrooms  and  DTH  channels  on  pro-rata  basis  for  number  of  schools  approved.  The financial  assistance  include,  a  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.

In  the  second  option,  schools  which  have  already  availed  the  ICT  facility  earlier  can  avail smart classrooms/tablets as per the norms of the scheme.

The non-recurring grant for Smart Class rooms (Maximum 2 smart classrooms per school) is of  Rs.  2.40  lakh  and  the  recurring  grant  is  Rs.  0.38  lakh  (including  E  Content  and  Digital Resources, Charges for Electricity. The state may also use Solar Power-Hybrid solar instead, to ensure Sustainability and Internet connectivity (Tele communications/ satellite communication/ OFC).

An amount of Rs. 2469.68 Lakh is also recommended for 9192 schools of Sikkim, Ladakh, J&K,  MP  and  Arunachal  Pradesh  based  on  the  proposal  received  under  Innovation,  for providing Tablet in schools as Digital Library.

Approval of Tablets in Schools as Digital Library

| State/ UT         |   No. of Schools |   Amount Approved (Rs in lakh) |
|-------------------|------------------|--------------------------------|
| Arunachal Pradesh |               40 |                         120    |
| J&K               |              377 |                          30.16 |
| Ladakh            |              839 |                         444    |
| MP                |             7874 |                        1689.52 |
| Sikkim            |               62 |                         186    |
| Total             |             9192 |                        2469.68 |

(d) & (e)  Education  being  in  the  concurrent  list  of  the  Constitution  and  majority  of  the schools,  colleges  and  university  are  under  the  domain  of  respective  State  and  UT Governments. The Central Government  is constantly advising States/UTs through guidelines and meeting with respect to interventions for reducing impact of pandemic on education. The guidelines issued so far are as follows:

-  Guidelines For Children of Migrant Labourers: https://www.mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload\_files/mhrd/files/Migrant%20labour%20guideline.pdf
-  Guidelines  For  Out  of  School  Children  and  Mitigation  of  Loss  of  Learning: https://www.education.gov.in/sites/upload\_files/mhrd/files/guidelines\_oosc.pdf.
-  PRAGYATA Guidelines on Digital Education: https://mhrd.gov.in/sites/upload\_files/mhrd/files/pragyata-guidelines\_0.pdf
-  Learning Enhancement Guidelines for Continuous Learning: https://ncert.nic.in/pdf/announcement/Learning\_%20Enhancement\_Guidelines.pdf

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