The Covid 19 pandemic has disrupted worldwide education system. Schools and universities haven’t faced this level of disruption in generations. The new system of education is online lectures from nursery to PG level. Learners, teachers and families are at the heart of the new education arrangement. However, this alternative medium has also brought to the fore some stark realities of Indian society characterised by social disparities in terms of availability of resources to all students in metros as well as rural India. It appears that digital initiatives are not monitored. The digital divide between rural and urban and rich and poor shows yawning gap.

Transition from classroom to online faces a big problem; according to the most recent data from the National Centre for Education Statistics (NCES), 14% of children ages 3-18 don’t have internet access at home. More than 9 million schoolchildren will face difficultly completing assignments online. The biggest problem is in households where multiple children are studying and have access to only one smartphone with limited data pack how can the children do justice to attending lectures?

Students and teachers also have their own struggles while accessing these online platforms. Due to financial constraints, students are not able to access the internet, and are devoid of electronic gadgets such as laptop, phone or computer or even radio and TV. Those students who have facilities to attend to online classes face barriers in terms of unavailability of physical space, which is equally applicable to teachers who are supposed to conduct online classes from their home.

Given the great difference in the infrastructure across states in terms of internet and allied facilities it appears to be a huge task for the state governments. In addition, the NGOs that support the weaker sections of the society in terms of health, education and livelihood and also collaborate with governments are facing a huge financial crunch as most of the funds are being diverted to tackle the pandemic.

Quality of the content is not at par: Teacher-student relationship can be best established in a classroom only. The interaction and the questions a student asks the instructor in the class cannot happen in an online interaction. As a teacher, I stress on the fact that virtual learning offers a good substitute to classroom learning in the time of emergency as the present one, but it cannot replace the classroom.

Technology has been considered central to the reform of school education and has gained exceptional impetus during this pandemic. It is being perceived as a solution to fight all the education related issues, hence the hurry to transfer classrooms into the virtual world without taking into consideration the reach to all learners. In a country as diverse as India in terms of regional, linguistic, caste, class and gender, and socioeconomic status, the school system is also characterised by stratification from elite to low fee private schools as well as government schools, which creates a plethora of issues about specific educational, psychosocial, emotional and financial needs of students as well as teachers based on gender, caste, class and socioeconomic status.

What is worst in the present situation is, from politicians to bureaucrats to private institutions and deemed universities, all are concerned with completing the syllabus, assessing students and conducting entrance tests for medical and engineering courses through online mode in a haste, ignoring the issues and concerns of the side-lined section of the society. When only 24 per cent of the households of students in India have internet access and in urban areas, 42 per cent of households have access to the internet as compared to 15 per cent in rural areas, this online education is catering to the needs of a chosen few. Isn’t this a grave issue?   

Why can’t we learn some lessons from countries like Syria, and Kenya and other African countries that have faced several political, economic and natural disasters such as conflict, recurring refugees and recurring epidemics like Ebola? They have the experience of making provisions for the education of children during difficult times. Over the years they have developed policies to keep the schooling of students going. There is evidence to show that for children belonging to disadvantaged groups, low tech mediums such as radio, television are useful.

The experience of tackling the Ebola crisis has helped Sierra Leone – a country in West Africa to prepare a better strategy to address Covid induced educational disturbance. The country has implemented a plan to provide education to its children which includes radio broadcast as well as distribution of pen, pencil and books to students. With 80 per cent mobile phone penetration, the country is trying to capitalise on it by developing a mobile phone-based educational intervention. Let’s replicate their model. 

We cannot miss the point of providing equity and equality in education as per our Constitution. The Indian Constitution aims to provide equality of education opportunities to all citizens irrespective of caste, class, gender and religion. Article 29 (1) provides for equal access to educational institutions maintained by the State without discrimination on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them. Similarly, the Right to Education Act 2009 mandates to provide equitable quality education to all children from six to 14 years of age. But the fact is people from weaker strata of society are left high and dry.

I conclude my point stating that while government is making provisions for online learning or planning to resume offline on-campus school post-COVID, needs serious thinking at all levels; inclusivity is lost in virtual lectures.

Kids can be easily influenced by the advertisements on various media platforms. Every day we are showered with countless advertisements; they are in newspapers, on billboards, hoardings, banners, websites, newspaper insertions and TV. Whether we like them are not – we are exposed to about hundreds of them on a daily basis. Majority of the time, we ignore them because we are used to tune them out, but kids retain them. They are the captive audience. Do you know that the average American child watches an estimate between 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials per year, and an average UK child watches about 10,000 commercials per year? The kid market is a flourishing worldwide. Across the world children have and are assuming the role of decision makers from a relatively young age. They have a say on which car, mobile, fridge, TV, which colour should the house have, which footwear brand should he/she and the parents wear, which channel to view. You name the procurement and they have their opinion. In marketing this phenomenon is called “Pester Power.” Children usually nag their parents to get things done their way.

Marketers use different media vehicles to communicate with this target audience. A media vehicle which the kid market is very conversant with is television. Television viewing by children has been increasing at an exponential rate especially in the developing countries.  If you observe closely, you will see that most commercials have at least one or two child models in them even if the product or service is not meant for kids. Consequently, television commercials appear to have a large impact upon the brand preference and purchase behavior of children.

Do you know that the minivan was created, because children demanded more room? The three-door minivan was not considered cool. Every auto manufacturer has a strategy to target children, observes a market researcher named James McNeal, who specializes in the children’s market.  The renowned behaviorist was also vice president of the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency and is a spokesperson for the idea that any child, conditioned early enough, could be turned into anything right from a doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and anything, advertisers tap into this vulnerability of children. Young children are increasingly the target of advertising and marketing because of the amount of money they spend themselves and the fact of influence they have on their parents spending. While we used to see child-targeted marketing concentrating on sweets and toys, it now includes clothes, shoes, a range of fast foods, sports equipment, computer products and toiletries as well as adult products such as cars, house, banking and credit cards.

Don’t we all love to watch commercials with kids in it? Our heart ticks, they are heartwarming sometimes and often more successful in giving the precise message. This fact is used beautifully by few advertisers. Airtel in their commercial named ’Barriers break when people talk’ the premise: Two boys, separated by border fences. One of them asks another one to kick a football and they end up crawling under the fences and start playing football together. The core idea is that simple act of communication can bring people together. The film has been created by Rediffusion DY&R.

One survey in America found that 79% of adolescents nationally owned an iPod or MP3 player, 75% owned a cell phone, and 69% owned a desktop or laptop computer. The changing trends in usage and ease of mobility of many of these devices challenge our thinking whether the media exposure is worth it? Are the kids getting too much of exposure into adult world in their susceptible age? Can the increased access to media be minimized with its associated risk factors?

I recall one Times of India ad few years back. The ad starts with a traffic jam due to a massive tree fall blocking a road. While a special way out has been arranged for the VIP, the rest continue to criticize the country as it rains. Suddenly, a kid comes around and tries to move the big tree. Seeing him struggle, other kids and commuters join him and manage to remove the tree to clear the traffic. The inspiring music was composed and performed by Indian musical trio Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy. The ad gives the message: wake up and the country will follow automatically. Kids are more effective to give a message.

Pester power is very effective which has never been reported by any research. Pester power is criticized for one key fact that is the repeated nagging by the child irritates parents to no end.  However, young children may not be articulate enough to have any other feasible methods of persuasion, and let’s not forget the fact that advertisements are specifically designed to encourage young children to nag. One research on this topic suggests that one in six parents claim they now find it difficult to say “no” to their child when pestered to buy them for something and nine out of 10 parents said their children demand things when out shopping together, hence parents prefer to leave the offspring at home to avoid their pestering.

Parents succumb to their children’s demand for gifts and gadgets whenever they ask for them. These items have a great sales because of kids demand electronic gadgets like mobiles, TV, computers of their choice, and they demand changing them often. The parents ‘give in’ easily to their children’s demands because they feel guilty for spending lesser time with their kids and for working long hours. They also don’t want their children to be bullied at school for not having the latest ‘must-have’ item. This include sort of bribing the children for doing their homework and other assignments in time.

But look at the flipside: The world’s leading climate economists are using pester power to influence their parents and other adults into doing more to save the planet. Climate-change campaigners have a new weapon in the fight against global warming. They feel that today’s young people can and should hold their parents’ generation to account for their present actions. They can provoke an emotional response that can motivate actions. Lord Stern, a respected London School of Economics professor who wrote on the financial implications of climate change in 2006, feels using pester power will be a wise thing.

One of the most commanding ways you can encourage your children to contribute in your decision making is to teach them how to make decisions, and to allow them to make their own decisions. The decisions that your children make as they approach maturity dictate the people they become and the life paths they choose. Unfortunately, we shy away from allowing our children’s decision-making.