Shireen Seema Sadiq, Legal Consultant, Institute for Development of Youth, Women and Child
ABSTRACT
The future of tribal education has always been a key issue of concern. Education and overall development is affected due to remoteness of tribal areas, lack of transportation and communication, poverty, frequent power cuts, linguistic barriers, superstition, conservative nature of the tribal communities and exploitation by external force. As it is the era of digitalization, it becomes more urgent to think about the ways of imparting education in tribal areas. As India is largely affected due to COVID-19 pandemic, all schools, colleges and educational institutions are closed and education is provided by online or digital medium. Digitalized education has its respective pros and cons, but the question of accessibility and affordability remain the most important when we talk about tribal areas which are still not completely connected by internet. Another difficulty is the lack of technical knowledge among tribal people in rural area where parents, students, other people are not aware of the use of technology. Even teachers are not techno-friendly which also makes the use of digitalized education a problem. The situation is totally different in metro cities as compared to tribal areas where standard of living and level of education is quite higher which is not same in the case of tribal areas. Education which is a fundamental right has to be provided to children of tribal areas. There is a need to link the tribal people to mainstream and digitalized education could be a medium. But due to lack of resources and infrastructure, digitalized education could prove to be futile and only a formality. There is a need to establish stable internet connection, electrification and provide basic technical assistance to people in tribal areas. The paper analyses the impact and scope of digitalization in tribal education in India.
Keywords: Tribal, Digitalization, Education, Deprived, Technology
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