Fatima* is a thirteen-year-old sixth grader who goes to a government school in Islamabad. She uses her father’s phone to connect to the class WhatsApp group where her teacher shared test details and updates for the next lesson. However, owing to the spam messages being sent by her classmates in the group, her father removed her from the group to stop his phone from constantly ringing. As a result, she failed a test that she could not prepare for.
Fatima is not the only one who struggles to access digital updates from the class, but in fact this is a case for many young girls who do not have a readily available mobile phone at home. For instance, Naila* and Ayesha* are twin sisters who study in seventh grade in a government school in Islamabad. Similar to Fatima*, they depend on their father’s phone who lives in another city for work and only visits home over the weekend. As a result, they too cannot keep up with the updates in the class WhatsApp group.
Aleesha* is also a seventh-grader who goes to a school in the Bhara Kahu sector in Islamabad. Much like the other girls, she too depends on her parents’ phone to connect with the class WhatsApp group, but both the parents return home from work late at night leading to a loss of any important update shared in the group. She says that this gap tremendously affects her performance in the class.
This is a common occurrence on the school level where access to a smartphone is not only restricted because of their young age, but also because of limited resources available at the family’s disposal to afford another phone, but in fact, the challenges of digital divide extend up to higher education levels also.
Ali*, an MPhil student of a public university in Islamabad originally from Gilgit Baltistan, cannot visit his hometown owing to the lack of working internet. He says that the lack of an internet connection is coupled with the unavailability of electricity throughout the day which is a challenge that he cannot afford to face in the middle of his academic research.
These experiences are just the tip of the iceberg. Many such stories that were brought forth during the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the issues in digital education and accentuate the gap between the Sustainable Development Goal for Education and the performance of Pakistan.
Digitisation of Education, A Need
Sustainable Development Goal 4 focuses on Education and states, “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.” The goal is to bring back children into school, make education accessible and upgrade along with other targets. During the past two years, it has become strikingly evident that digital education is an upgraded and needed form of education that must be accessible to everyone.
Covid-19 shifted the global attention towards virtual classrooms and online learning culture. The usage of Zoom increased, and the company jumped from an annual profit of US$21.7 million in 2019 to US$671.5 million in 2020. Though the pandemic imposed restrictions have eased, the situation for education does not seem to be going to pre-pandemic times. Globally, the conventional form of teaching in the classrooms has started taking a backseat, and virtual classrooms are becoming ubiquitous. However, this sudden shift towards digital education highlighted the loopholes in the policies, practices and preparedness of e-learning around the world, and Pakistan is no exception.
In Pakistan, the online world, let alone e-learning, is a relatively new phenomenon. The prospects of distance learning in the country were slim until very recently when Allama Iqbal Open University, Virtual University, and a few others started offering degree programs of such nature. The fact cannot be ignored that these universities offered distance learning but not online learning that requires routine in-person interaction between the instructor and the student – the kind that was seen during the pandemic. Consequently, this goes without saying that digital education was a need of the advanced world before the pandemic, and it continues to be a need in the present times.
Digital Education Policies And Government’s Measures
In Pakistan, political turmoil and instability have become a hallmark of politics, with not even a single prime minister who could complete his tenure in the office. Every coming government made plenty of promises to improve the education sector, and they tend to associate themselves with one education policy or another. During the PML(N) government from 2013-2018, the initiative of the Prime Minister Laptop Scheme was launched. At that time, laptops among the university students, based on their performance, were distributed under five phases. Sadia* was among the students who was given this laptop, and her experience also provides insight into this initiative and its impact.
She says that purchasing a laptop in 2018 was not easy for her father. “Two of my brothers and a sister were also going to school and college, so it was a challenge for my father to bear all the expenses. In such a situation, asking him for a laptop seemed selfish to me.” She adds, “I applied for this laptop scheme by the former Prime Minister, and it proved to be a relief for me.” The laptop came with a wireless portable internet device, PTCL Evo 4G, which Sadia says was “a pleasant addition”
However, there were added challenges that she had to face. A 1500 Rupees package to connect to this internet is beyond the affordability of most people in the country. “I got the laptop and [the internet device] also, but internet accessibility was still a challenge,” she says. The internet was expensive for Sadia to afford so she found herself struggling to connect to digital platforms for her studies through the device. “It was too expensive for us to afford, and even in university, the free WiFi facility was not available,” she adds. While she says that having a laptop that she did not have to pay for helped her and she did not need to add burden on her father, “the government paid very little attention to the continuity of its use.” As a result, Sadia relied on her neighbours who allowed her to use their internet connection for studies.
Sadia’s story reveals layers of the challenges one faces while keeping up with the access to digital education. For a long time now in Pakistan, universities have started the practice of powerpoint presentations, typed assignments, research papers that require access to digital libraries, and the list continues. However, little attention has been paid to making these platforms and tools affordable and accessible.
Despite the fact that the internet in Pakistan is considered to be one of the cheapest in the world, the buying power of individuals remains low, and hence the barrier of affordability continues. Regardless of the challenges, Sadia says, “This initiative is a start. At least people were able to have a working laptop.” However, before it could prosper, the government changed, and so did the policies.
Digital Pakistan And e-Taleem
The beginning of a new government in 2018, led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), brought an end to the Prime Minister Laptop Scheme. On one hand, where some programs were closed by the PTI government, a few new initiatives were taken up by the then-ruling party. The PTI government that extensively focused on digitisation, introduced a program called “e-taleem”, translated as “e-education”. The purpose of the program was to ensure distance learning for children, and it was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic owing to the need for schools to go into lockdown which resulted in mass dropouts across the country. Through this initiative, the government introduced multiple programs – digital platforms through public-private partnership, teleschool, and radio school.
The e-Taleem initiative partnered with four education-focused organisations to introduce five Digital Platforms, including Noon Academy, Muse, Sabaq Foundation, Knowledge Platform and Taleemabad, that focus on e-learning during COVID-19. Though one wants to appreciate this initiative, and ostensibly it looks promising too, however, the experiences of Naila, Fatima and others like them paint a different picture since the problem is not the unavailability of a platform; the problem is not being able to access those platforms because of lack of a device and internet connection.
Digital platforms like YouTube are abound with content for children ranging from entertainment to learning, but accessibility is a challenge for students in Pakistan. According to the education statistics of 2016-2017, around 86 percent of primary schools are in rural areas. These schools have limited access to mobile connectivity and the internet. As far as advanced technology equipment is concerned, most schools are ill-equipped. This directly hinders these schools from using digital mediums for learning. Thus, the availability of digital platforms like e-Taleem does no good, and they are planned in isolation, disconnected from the reality of the stakeholders.
According to the Annual Inclusive Index Report by the Economist Intelligence Unit that examines 120 countries on four variables including internet affordability, availability, readiness, and relevance, Pakistan falls in the lower quartile. Out of 120 countries, Pakistan stands at 90th position, second last in Asia, and last in South Asia on the index.
Affordability Is A Challenge In The Way Of Accessibility
According to a GSMA study “Addressing the Mobile Gender Gap in Pakistan”, due to competing mobile phone services in the market, the cost of purchasing a mobile phone is reduced. People have options when it comes to buying cell phones now. But regardless of the lowered prices of smartphones on a global standard, they remain out of reach of the masses who find it a burden to buy a phone that costs over 8000 Rupees. In addition, internet accessibility is also a problem for many; as Sadia* mentions that even after getting a laptop from the government, internet access continued to be a challenge for her.
In January 2022, the Pakistani government imposed an additional tax of 17 percent on imported cellular phones, and another tax of 10 to 15 percent on mobile services, making the already unaffordable service and tools further inaccessible. This increase indicates that internet access is considered a luxury in Pakistan rather than a need. This also leads us to question that, with such high rates of internet services in Pakistan, how is the success of Digital Pakistan in general, and digital learning programs in particular, possible? Affordability of internet services with other challenges such as gender disparity makes access to digital learning a distant reality in Pakistan.
Digital Gender Divide
When 14-year-old Naila* said that access to a cell phone is a problem for her because her father has a phone and he comes home only on weekends, she was unknowingly highlighting the issue of digital gender parity. Pakistan ranks among the highest countries in the world in terms of the gender gap. The digital gender gap is prominent, with 65 percent of the gap in access to the internet and 51 percent in ownership of mobile phones. This means that a significant number of the women population does not have mobile access, and even more do not have access to the internet. This digital gender gap affects digital learning directly.
In Pakistan, only 25 percent of women are in the workforce compared to 77.72 percent of men, according to the World Bank Collection of Development Indicators. It implies that most women stay at home, and if home-based learning and digitisation of education are to be ensured, then the key is to end digital gender parity. The GSMA conducted a study on the mobile and internet gender gap in Pakistan in 2019. According to the study, smartphone ownership is generally low in Pakistan and even lower for women. Only 19 percent of women in Pakistan have access to a smartphone compared to 37 percent of men. This accentuates a significant gap in state policies regarding digital education, as these policies are detached from the actual requirement.
Digital Literacy Amongst Educators
If students lack the resources to access digital learning, teachers lack the training to navigate in the world of digital advancement where digital learning is emphasised.
Maria* is a teacher in a government school in Islamabad. She has been teaching in the government sector for the past 20 years, and says, “When I started teaching, it used to be different, but now expectations are different. Earlier, we used to come to school, teach children and go home. Now things have changed, and cell phones have also become a school.” She informs that students communicate with teachers through cell phones. When she does not come to school, she shares the homework pictures on her class WhatsApp group with her students. However, she says this has added discomfort to her life. For her, “managing work on a cell phone is challenging and full of hassle.”
Maria adds that since the COVID-19 lockdown, there is an added emphasis on incorporating technology in classrooms. She says, “The school has put a projector in the lab, but nobody knows how to use it so what’s the point?” Maria says that lack of training makes it very challenging to follow through.
She adds that teachers are using WhatsApp to share homework and tests with students, but follow an old method of informing relevant page numbers for reading. Lack of digital literacy training and unavailability of proper tools and mechanisms in place for both teachers and students would continue to make digital education challenging. Maria informs that the idea of digital education is new for most of the teachers working in government schools, and there is a need to give them training and resources to run these programs successfully.
Need For Informed Policymaking
The Ministry of Information and Technology introduced Digital Pakistan Policy to emphasise on the need to increase inclusion of technology in various industries, including education. The goals identified in the policy included network accessibility, e-portals, early childhood coding programs and ICT for women and young girls through schools. However, the implementation of this policy has so far not been very transparent, if at all.
Efforts toward digitisation of education need to be rigorous in the country in order to ensure it matches the international standards. There is a need to not only enhance the capacity of teachers and students to use digital platforms, but the government must prioritise making internet and smartphones affordable and accessible for everyone. There is a need for policymaking that is informed by the reality and circumstances of the people in the country.
