CRM_Research Topic Assignment

Saikat Samanta (x03022)

Research Question (Topic):

What are barriers in online education (Primary & secondary) in Rural India?

(Rural India and Online education: bridging the missing links)

Justification for the Topic:

Till today huge part of India’s population resides in rural area. However, the education facilities
available in rural India still lacks the proper attention as it needed due to several factors. Covid-19
pandemic has created unprecedented crisis all over the globe including our country. Most critical
paradigm shift is happening in the education system. Due to nationwide lockdown, physical mode
of education system has been discontinued leading to uncertain future for the students especially
primary and secondary level. We must put emphasis on primary and secondary education as these
are the base level to make strong foundation for future education. On the brighter side of Pandemic,
'online' has become a buzz word in our personal and professional life. Entire education system is
shifted to online mode. While urban population is trying to adopt, for rural India it has become a
nightmare. Rural India had its own lacunas in delivering the best education even during pre-covid
era ranging from infrastructure deficiency, in-sufficient teachers, aversion of the people to send
their kids to schools, poverty, gender discrimination etc. While already struggling with plethora of
problems, rural India is now facing new set of challenges in the online education. Where arranging
two times meals is an issue, how people in rural India will come up with highly increased demand
of 'gigabytes', if at all they could arrange some device to use it. A large proportion of the rural
population continues to face issues like internet connectivity, electric service and cope up with the
digital technology. Moreover, the teachers in rural areas are also not well acquainted with this new
style of teaching. We need to have a serious look in to this problem urgently and seriously,
otherwise we may lose the rural education system which we created with long and arduous effort.
The barriers currently facing rural student is multipronged and there is an ardent need to understand
the underlying causes what rural India is currently facing in the online mode, especially in primary
and secondary education. Once the problems are identified, suitable actions can be taken to bridge
the gap.