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How COVID-19 deepens the digital education divide in India

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A total of 320 million learners in India have been adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and have transitioned to e-learning;

With huge regional and household disparities in access to the internet and technology, this transition has not been possible for all students and educators;

The rapid shift to e-learning prompted by the pandemic has resurfaced long-standing issues of inequality and a digital divide in India that must be addressed by future economic, education and digitalization policies.

The education system in India is facing a new crisis thanks to COVID-19. Besides the effect on short-term learning outcomes, extended school closures will result in a loss in human capital and diminished economic opportunities in the long run.


Literature suggests that for countries with already low learning outcomes, high dropout rates, low resilience to shock and inadequate infrastructure to build back better the impact on education will be felt even more deeply.

India has the world’s second-largest school system, after China. Shutting schools to maintain social distancing amidst the COVID-19 crisis was the most logical solution to avoid community transmission. However, this prolonged closure has a disproportionately negative impact on the most vulnerable students. The pandemic has not only caused the wide rift in educational inequality to balloon but also exacerbated existing disparities.


A total of 320 million learners in India have been adversely affected and transitioned to the e-learning industry, which comprises a network of 1.5 million schools. An NSSO 2014 report highlights that 32 million children were already out of school before the pandemic — the majority of them belonging to the socially disadvantaged class in the country.


While the government endorses India as the flag-bearer of the digital revolution and acknowledges that it is a diverse and multilingual country, as supported by the recently drafted new education policy, e-learning platforms cannot replicate the various dialects, varied contexts and different lived experiences that are brought together by physical classrooms. If e-learning is the “new normal”, the policy must go further to address the feasibility of digitalization to ensure equity and quality in education.

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