A survey of rural children of Classes IX to XII on schooling and learning has found that nearly 90 per cent of them know how to use smartphones and a majority of them use it for entertainment purposes with little knowledge about online safety.

The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2023-Beyond Basics released on Wednesday found that the students were less equipped to use smartphones for certain useful purposes such as surfing Google Maps and finding out travel time by taxi or bike from their location to a destination.

The survey was conducted by NGO Pratham in 28 districts across 26 states, covering a total of 34,745 youths in the age group of 14 to 18 years with a special focus on youths’ access to digital devices and skills to do digital tasks. It also collected data on students’ activities, abilities and aspirations.

The survey found that close to 90 per cent of all youths had a smartphone in the household and knew how to use it. Of those who could use a smartphone, males (43.7 per cent) are more than twice as likely to have their own smartphone than females (19.8 per cent).

The children were asked to do certain digital tasks such as setting an alarm, finding the first woman President of India by browsing the Internet, using Google Maps and using the PMGDISHA Module — a digital literacy programme — from YouTube. Only 37 per cent could do the task on Google Maps, 66 per cent could set an alarm, 71 per cent could browse information and 82 per cent could find a YouTube video.

Of those who were able to use social media on smartphones, nearly half of them had no knowledge about safety features such as blocking or reporting a profile, making a profile private and changing passwords (see chart).

Of those using smartphones, 66 per cent had done at least one education-related activity such as watching a video related to studies, solving doubts related to current studies or exchanging notes using a messaging app online during the reference week.

About 27.6 per cent had accessed any online service such as making a payment, filling a form, paying a bill or booking a ticket.

However, when it comes to consuming entertainment content, 78 per cent of smartphone users, including 82 per cent of males and 74 per cent of females, had done that in the reference week.

Rukmini Banerji, director of the ASER Centre, told The Telegraph that children were not guided on the use of smartphones, which was a matter of concern.

“A high percentage of youths knew about the use of smartphones, but half of them did not know safety protocols. They were mainly using the Internet and smartphones for entertainment purposes. It means they were not properly
guided on how to make the best use of smartphones and the Internet,” Banerji said.

Half of all surveyed males have an email ID, compared to slightly under 30 per cent among females.

In terms of learning ability, about 25 per cent of this age group still cannot read a Standard II-level text fluently in their regional language. More than half struggle with the division of three-digit numbers by one-digit number problems. Only 43.3 per cent can solve such problems correctly. This skill is usually expected in Standard III and IV.

A little over half can read sentences in English (57.3 per cent). Of those who can read sentences in English, almost three-quarters can tell their meanings (73.5 per cent).