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The outbreak and spread of Covid-19 pandemic has brought in unprecedented challenges to the world in all walks of social life. Its social impact is so diverse and deep- rooted and the same left no corner unturned from its deadly reach out. It has shaken the world top to bottom and changed most of our preconceived notion of life, society and social security. The pandemic has put the world under threat without the distinction of rich and poor, victor and the vanquished and the oppressor and the oppressed. Broken out from the Chinese market of Wuhan, within a short span of time, it did reach in all Continents, in each and every society and even in our neighborhood. It forcibly closed down the business world, paralised the service sector and put social security in perils. In a sense, the pandemic has otherwise revealed the gravity of social contradiction inherent in all prevailing social systems.

It is the time when we realized through the brutal racial killing of George Floyd in US that remnants of racialism is still live in the Amercian Democratic system. It is the time when we realized that the US President Donald Trump preferred the business lobby’s interest in the US rather than its the citizen’s lives, when he hesitated to declare lockdown in time of urgency. It is the time in India we witnessed to the horrific experience of the thousands of poor daily workers’ and laborers’ long horrific walk back to their homes, without getting the primary consideration of the citizen of the nation. It is also the time in India that we watched the enactment of anti- worker rules and regulation, renouncing the standing guidelines of ILO and the general provision of the UN. It is the time, in India when the black board in schools is forcibly replaced by smart phones.

The pandemic still continues and a remedy is yet to be arrived at. Hence it is not the appropriate time for taking stock of the devastating impact of the pandemic on the world. However certain sectors like education needs careful nurturing since the domain unfastens a natural reflection of the contradiction inherent within the social system. This is very much particular about India as well.

From the very day of the declaration of lockdown, the educational institutions in India remained closed. However the prolonged duration of the lockdown forced the authorities and teaching communities to find out the alternative approaches and strategies for class room teaching and to the learning process. The alternative solution chalked out was E-learning or online learning. This was very much particular about the school education system. Right now there are 10,30,995 schools in India of which 8,53,184 are in rural areas and 1,77,812 are in urban areas. Out of this almost 3,39,000 are private schools. Altogether 37.4 million students are enrolled in India.

During the prolonged days of lockdown almost all private schools in the urban limit took alternative mode of online teaching. In most of the government schools both in the urban and rural background such an methodological shift was not practically possible. This is primarily due to the lack of resources. First ,there was inadequate technological support for the schools. Second, the students ,most of whom are from the rural background have no access with the on line learning equipments. This prompted them to keep away from the ongoing E-learning process. Moreover when a big majority of the population of the nation struggle are confined at home and find no way for their daily bread, it is unimaginable for them to bring down the E-learning materials for their children. In normal course it needs either a smart phone or a laptop and an internet connection to equip a child to participate in the ongoing online classes. In a country where 22% of population belong to the category of BPL , this is quite paradoxical. Even with in this general economical backwardness of the nation, in some states like Chattisgarh and Jharkhand the level of poverty line in rural area is 45%.

If we take the case of national capital Delhi, 16 lakh students were disrupted with their studies without access to online class equipments. If this is the case of national capital, the picture in all other states are not optimistic. It is estimated that all over India a big majority of students were disrupted with their studies on the technical reason that they don’t have access with the said online devices. This accessibility is closely rooted to their poor economic position which makes the digital divide explicit. Such a digital division set apart students into two different segments- those having accessibility and those who don’t have it. This digital divide is brought in by the control over resource and its non-availability. Thus the pandemic has brought the digital divide wide open in India. As a result a big majority of poor students are kept away from the ongoing online teaching and learning process. No doubt this will have a far reaching implication on the socio political milieu of the nation, which in turn will reverse the democratic process in a bigger way.