Experts call for system to bridge DU's digital divide

Even as admissions to Delhi University’s undergraduate courses began on August 2, experts feel the lack of a centralised system to track students requiring assistance to access online classes will affect many as colleges do not follow a uniform procedure to identify them.

Though university officials said that collecting this data during the registration process may discourage aspirants from applying to DU, several stakeholders and experts said educational institutes need to formulate a uniform plan to track students affected by the digital divide.

Educational institutes have been shut down in the Capital since March last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, moving the teaching-learning process online. Even as many students reported challenges while pursuing online education, the tragic death by suicide of a 19-year-old undergraduate student from Lady Shri Ram College for Women in November, allegedly due to a lack of devices to attend online classes and losing her hostel seat over policy changes, jolted colleges and universities across the capital into action.

For instance, LSR also set up a digital inclusion club along with reaching out to students with financial and mental health support.

Students’ union president Karthika Sajeev, a final-year student of political science, said, “As a means to ensure that the incident wasn’t repeated, we have a digital inclusion club led by college administration and supported by our alumni. Through this club, college tries to identify students who don’t have a laptop. We also have a tech-support group where students can reach out if they have issues and we can assign someone to help them.”

Several DU colleges, including LSR, St Stephen’s College, Hindu College, Miranda House and Ramjas College, have offered scholarships to needy students and arranged for devices by roping in alumni members, wherever required, along with forming task forces to address the matter.

However, its implementation has been patchy as only a few DU colleges have systems in place to track students who require laptops or internet data packs to attend online classes during the pandemic. Most colleges continue to put the onus of asking for assistance on students, which many feel might leave some students behind.

Educationist Meeta Sengupta said that maintaining such data on students and studying how each student accesses the internet will help institutes in devising hybrid teaching-learning plans as well. “Ideally, universities and colleges should conduct a survey once the admission is confirmed and develop a mechanism to find out where each student stands. Along with lack of devices and internet, educational institutes also have to understand how students having these facilities are using it so that they can design teaching plans accordingly,” she said.

University officials, however, feel the move may deter applicants. Rajeev Gupta, dean of students’ welfare, said, “Asking for such information may discourage students from applying as they may think that they need these things to fit into DU. We have to consider that aspect as well. Once they are admitted into colleges, they can reach out to college administration asking for assistance. The laptops distributed under the FYUP (four year undergraduate programme) schemes are still with colleges and they can be given to needy students.”

Most colleges HT spoke to said they have asked students to write to them in case they needed help, but such help will require outstation students to visit to campus at least once to collect the devices, which may not be easy for all.

DU executive council member Seema Das further said that it is not prudent to expect all students to know about their rights to access education. “Those from marginalised backgrounds may not have the awareness that they can seek help from the system. These are just 18- or 19-year-olds who have no idea that they have a right to education and can ask for assistance. It will be better to formulate a survey to find out how many students need help. We also have to account for the financial distress of the pandemic and see how the cost of education has gone up in terms of internet charges. Students had to buy devices to continue their education even if it meant taking loans,” she said.

Falit Sijariya, a second-year student of St Stephen’s College (SSC), said that he learned about his college offering laptops to those in need only after he returned to the hostel in January this year. “There is no proper mechanism for college to track students who don’t have devices. It was working on a word-of-mouth basis. It is only after I started living on campus that my seniors told me about this provision and we were able to tell others on how to go about this process,” he said.

Teachers have also called for streamlining the assistance schemes, ahead of the new academic session.

Former DU teachers’ association president Nandita Narain, who is also the teachers’ representative of SSC governing body, said that the college departments were asked to send in names of needy students. “But this has happened only once in the previous academic cycle. Instead of expecting students to reach out to us, we should reach out to them. Before the classes begin for the new batch of students, a transparent and proper mechanism for providing assistance to students should be developed,” she said.

A handful of DU colleges, including Aryabhatta College, are among the few institutes augmenting their existing systems to ensure that they are prepared for the upcoming batch. Principal Manoj Sinha, who is also the general secretary of the DU principals’ association, said, “We distributed around 300 laptops in the last academic cycle and are preparing for around 500 devices in the current academic session. While it is difficult to maintain class-wise data, we have been sending emails to students and asking teachers-in-charge to get in touch with each class so that we are able to reach all students.”

Aurobindo College principal said that when they sent out the email, only a few first-year students came to college to collect the laptops. “The attendance for online classes has been more than that for offline classes. This means that all students have access to devices and have been attending lessons. We had sent out an email to students last year asking them to collect laptops from the college if they needed them. However, there is no mechanism in place for outstation students,” he said.

Experts, however, said that attendance cannot be a parameter for the accessibility, with Sengupta pointing out that a student may access classes on their phone but the quality of the internet or the device may not aid learning. “There are students who may not be able to follow the full lecture if their internet connection is poor. Though they will be marked as present, their learning process is being hampered. This is where the data, if recorded, could help. Teachers could form learning plans based on the kind of internet access and availability the students have. This can be used after the pandemic as well,” she said.