ICT and Digital Divide in Indian School System
Gopal Krishna Thakur · 2014
The education system across the globe has undergone major transformation with the exceptionally fast paced change in technological domain of knowledge. As a result, ICT in its own way has managed to make a permanent place for itself in education sector – specifically in school education. Still, if we look into the situation and assess the pace with which ICT has made its place in school system, we find the sit uation not so convincing. Our schools, mainly govt. s chools are ill-equipped in terms of infrastructure and basic facilities, our teachers are not trained adequately to infuse ICT in education, and execution of many enthusiastic policies are d one half-heartedly, thus leaving the less privileged segment of children, who come from lower socio-economic class of society and are largely dependent on govt. school sys tem for their education, with very little or no access to digit al learning. This frustrating situation c reates a „digital divide‟, which refers to the gap between people with effective access t o digital and information technology and those with very l imited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in phys ical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citiz en. This paper attempts to look in to the status of ICT fac ilities in the govt. schools of Uttar Pradesh. The paper examines as to how far the govt. policies and efforts have been able to