Digital access comes before digital learning

We appreciate the government's initiative to buy new digital contents containing interactive and communicative lessons to help secondary students tap the potential of distance learning. The contents—to be aired on TV and also uploaded on different educational websites—will consist of recorded video lectures as well as visual presentations on various subjects including infographics and slideshows, so that students can easily understand them. The broader objective, according to the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, is to help make up for the learning loss caused by school closures since the start of the pandemic. With all educational institutions shuttered for nearly 17 months now and the prospect of reopening still seeming distant amid soaring Covid infections, this is a small but potentially impactful step targeting a vital group of the student population.

While, as always, proper execution is key to the success of this initiative—and one wonders if this couldn't have come sooner—our immediate concern is how much of an impact it will have given the existing digital divide in the country. It's well-known that initiatives taken so far by the government to ensure learning continuity have fallen far short of expectations. But what little it did hasn't had the desired outcome either, because of lack of access to digital devices and internet among students from rural and lower-income backgrounds. School students in particular suffered enormously because of this, to a point that Unesco called "a generational catastrophe." According to a joint study by Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) and Brac Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) released in May, the prolonged school closure has put a minimum of 3.42 million primary students and 2.50 million secondary students at risk of learning loss. Researchers behind the survey said a large number of students either were not studying at all or became irregular in their studies. Many dropped out of schools, and many were forced into marriage.

The future implication of this state of affairs is not hard to imagine. Introducing new learning contents is of course important, but far more important is to ensure its benefit reaches all students, not just those who have the "privilege" of access. This will no doubt further increase the divide between the privileged and the underprivileged in society. Unfortunately, despite repeated urgings, the education authorities have failed to come up with an effective learning continuity plan in all these months, nor were they able to offer a precise timetable for school reopening, which has become essential regardless of the present coronavirus situation. We urge the government to take urgent steps in this regard, in consultation with experts in the field. And for now, the ever-festering digital divide must be bridged, if we are to reap the benefits of what small learning measures being taken.