The figures provided by the minister gain significance in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent migration to online classes. Over 2.96 crore school students in India do not have access to digital devices, Education Minister Dharmendra Kumar said while responding to a parliamentary question posed by BJP Lok Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Singh. According to the data shared by the minister, Bihar ranks the highest, among the states, with over 1.4 crore students who don’t have access to digital devices, followed by Jharkhand with around 35 lakhs such students. Tripura ranks the lowest, among the states, with 13,909 students without access to digital devices in India. Why it matters? Ever since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020 and the announcement of the lockdown around the same time last year, schools have largely been shut in several parts of India and had to shift to online classes. Thus, an increasing number of students have had to rely on mobile phones or laptops with access to the internet in order to attend classes. The lack of access to digital devices feeds into the widening disparity of access to education faced by students across the country. Earlier, a report by the Ministry of Education had also revealed that only 22% of government schools had access to the internet last year. Other figures revealed by the Education Minister States in which the following percentage of children don't have access to digital devices: Delhi - 4% Jammu and Kashmir - 70% Madhya…
