Education gaps widening . . .
China’s unprecedented mass experiment with online education has shed light on the obstacles students face in low-income, rural, and remote areas in accessing learning. Even though the nation was quick to set up online teaching supported by local teachers and computer servers following its COVID-19-related school closures, for rural children, particularly those with migrant parents, education has ground to a halt. An unfortunate side-effect the current pandemic has had in deepening long-term inequality.
Disconnect between students and online teaching . . .
Despite China’s widespread internet coverage, children cannot access online classes due to poor mobile connections in the countryside, or because their family only has one device that the parents use for work. Fixed internet connections are also not affordable for many rural households, meaning kids only receive limited education through TV broadcasts. Another issue for the ‘left behind children’ of migrant workers raised by grandparents is the absence of supportive supervision where elderly caregivers lack both basic and digital literacy.
Always the most vulnerable fall behind . . .
Having passed the worst of its COVID-19 pandemic, China’s schools are lurching back into action, particularly in less affected localities such as Guizhou Province and the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. Nonetheless, with approximately 180 million kids out of school since the end of January and lingering concerns on preventing further contagion, the return to classes will remain slow. Now that countries with even more drastic digital inequality are closing down their schools for potentially long periods – especially in Southeast Asia – millions of disadvantaged students will fall behind around the world.