Why Indian Education can't go online completely ? What are the biggest challenges ?

Prepare to move online: Continuity planning for COVID-19 pandemic

Various issues behind Online Education in India :

COVID-19 and school :

• Most schools have been shut since Mid-march, to stop the spread of COVID-19. The traditional face-to-face mode of classroom learning is not feasible for some months. No one knows when schools, colleges and universities will reopen. Many Schools/colleges which could, have started online classes on YouTube or dedicated platforms or apps.
• Teachers and school administrators have been advised to continue communication with students through virtual lectures or portals like Massive Open Online Courses.
• However, in the absence of physical classrooms and proper digital infrastructure, both teachers and students are facing unprecedented challenges.

Electricity :

Access to electricity is crucial for digital education, both for powering devices as well as for connecting to the internet. Almost 99.9% of Indian homes have a power connection, the picture is less luminous if we look at the quality of electricity and the number of hours for which it is available every day.

3 in 4 parents in India want kids to continue online learning: survey 

Frequent power cuts :

Data from the Mission Antyodaya, a nationwide survey of villages conducted by the ministry of rural development, found that 20% of India's households received less than 8 hours of electricity and only 47% received more than 12 hours. 

Devices :

• Question is that how many extra phone available for student for a constant scheduled study in their house? It is actually not easy to afford extra phone/laptop for every child. Another issue is the lack of data,it is too much difficult for extra data pack.
• Only 24% of Indian households have an internet facility. While 66% of India’s population lives in villages, only a little over 15% of rural households have access to internet services. For urban households, the proportion is 42%.

The Digital Divide :

The digital divide is evident across class, gender, region or place of residence. Among the poorest 20% households, only 2.7% have access to a computer and 8.9% to internet facilities. In case of the top 20% households, the proportions are 27.6% and 50.5%. A peaceful environment and a separate room to listen to online class is a luxury many cannot afford.

Internet And Mobile Association Of India (IAMAI) Report 

Speed test, a site that analyses internet access performance across performance across the globe, in it's latest report on tracking COVID-19's impact on speeds around the world which was updated on April 15,showed a 6% decline in fixed line speeds and 18% in mobile speeds when compared to the week of March 2. As per the report, India's current broadband speed is an average of 36.17 Mbps and mobile download speed is 9.67 Mbps.

COVID-19 lock down : Amid e-learning push, parents wary as children's screen time increases. Facing many difficulties while adapting to new Technology because many teachers have never taught online, many students have never learning online,a lot more discipline is required.

The digital divide is evident across class, gender, and regions.

With the existing digital divide, expanding online education will push the digital have-not to the periphery of the education system, thereby increasing inequality in educational outcomes. If the governments continue online education without necessary supportive measures, the prevailing disparity in the virtual world could translate into widening educational inequalities among learners.