The Annual Status of Education Report 2023 compiled by the non-governmental organisation, Pratham, presents a picture of cautious optimism regarding the extent of the penetration of technology into rural India. But this, it must be acknowledged, also comes with several attendant warning signs. Surveying a sample group of some 34,000 youths in the 14-18 year age range, the study found that close to 90% of them had access to a smartphone at home and could use it. On being asked to navigate the device, 71% were able to browse the internet to search for information and 82% could even look up a specific video on YouTube. But as with every other sphere of life in India, the gender gap exists here too. Boys are more than twice as likely as girls to have their own smartphone. The percentage of respondents who have an email address differs greatly too — 51% of males have one as opposed to nearly 30% of females. Equally worrying are the dangers that confront young minds from unrestricted access to the internet and their obvious ignorance about online safety practices. Close to half of the over 90% of those surveyed who used social media had no knowledge about safety features, such as blocking or reporting a malicious profile, making their profiles private, and changing passwords. This ignorance is ominous, given the fact that children are vulnerable to data breaches — in June 2022, a researcher found a flaw in the ministry of education’s Diksha app that exposed the personal data of nearly six lakh students.

Technology will undoubtedly play a key role in the Central government’s ambition of achieving universal literacy by 2047. However, the dispensation’s disproportionate emphasis on achieving this digital saturation through an exponential increase in volume — whether through the vociferous promotion of the Diksha app in schools or the PMGDISHA module — is misguided. The focus should be on making phones and allied technology facilitators to the learning process. The fact that only 66% — two-thirds — of the participants in Pratham’s survey confessed to performing an education-related activity on their smartphones — a figure far lower than the 90% using it for social media — is especially worrying. A policy shift geared towards initiating proper awareness of the judicious use of smartphones as an educational tool is necessary, as is guidance about safety protocols, if children are to enjoy the fruits of India’s digital revolution.