A new lockdown has been announced in France and it started a few days ago. Thanks to the knowledge acquired during the preceding lockdown in the spring, and after having taken the advice of the scientific and health authorities, the French government has chosen to keep all schools, primary and secondary, open this time. This sometimes controversial decision, and not forgetting the economic cost, takes this essential fact into account: a few months without school has clearly reinforced educational inequalities: children and adolescents are far from equal in terms of what they know.
Social and economic inequalities have always existed; even though tools such as the carte scolaire, which made it compulsory for children to attend the school closest to their home address in order to avoid parents choosing schools with better reputations at greater distances, and the creation of Zones Prioritaires d’Education which allow some more disadvantaged neighborhoods to receive special grants for their schools, …, have tried in vain to correct or amend the situation. Unfortunately, to a large extent, these inequalities are embedded in the roots of all our modern societies.
The general lockdown of last April, and the sometimes very difficult return to school for many pupils and students, mainly because of the drastic health and safety conditions imposed (half classes, alternative weeks, demotivation because of cancellation of all exams, etc.) has revealed that digital teaching, far from bridging social and educational divides, has reinforced it for the most disadvantaged part of the population. This digital divide is usually used to illustrate the difficulties the uneducated adult population has with these (not so) new technologies, or those who do not possess equipment or Internet connection, and so cannot access online information.
A common pre-conceived idea is that children are computer literate, in an almost organic way, but firstly it should not be forgotten that playing online or watching a YouTube video does not mean that you have all the keys needed to use the equipment as a source of information, and secondly, one has to keep in mind that in 2020, almost 10 % of French children do not have a computer at home. And of course, beyond the equipment, there is the question of how able a parent is to accompany their sons and daughters into the Hi-Tech world. The result is a double-whammy for these children, not to mention the demotivation that cannot be made up for by particular attention of teachers or through the solidarity that can found amongst peers.
Without knowing the details of the Indian context, I can easily imagine that the uncomfortable situation of the most disadvantaged is at least the same, or certainly worse, given the vast rural population here.
The Alliance Française de Delhi, which teaches a subject that is non-essential for most of the population, does not face this digital divide: our students, teachers and administrators, all have the skills, devices, and access to the web, and if very rarely they do not, our institution is able to lend basic equipment.
So, how, in our small way, can we help to reduce this digital divide? In the coming years, and in light of the experiences of the past and the painful present experience of epidemic, our great and successful association will have to try to offer some small response: it is our social and moral responsibility.