Globally use of digital technology to aid education is now an accepted proposition. With new tools like augmented reality and others the students now have direct access to the reality of their learning. They learn what they can see. However in the context of a developing economy like India the issue is different. Here, in this country, literacy is defined by the percentage of population who can both read and write with understanding of short simple statement on everyday life. Going by this definition the Ministry of Human Resource study tells us that the rate has gone up from 61 per cent in 2001 to 69.3 per cent in 2011. The dropout rate is also on wane.

With the government spend on education hovering around 4 per cent this situation has little scope of changing radically. There is a large-scale agreement that the definition of literacy may not necessarily imply a functional understanding of written document.

There are issues with the quality of teaching at the school level. Teachers handle far too many children together depriving the youngsters of individual attention. Then there is the issue of poverty. Parents prefer kids to stay home and help the parents out. All these things tend to shackle efforts to boost the spread of education. So those who stick it out come out literate with ability to read and write with a questionable functional use which is the direct outcome of the quality of teaching.

It is assumed that with the spread of access to digital technology the cost per use will also come down further and become more affordable. It is also assumed that with intensity of the technology turning more dense, its exploitation as an education tool would also be easier.

The advocates of digital technology deployment in education argue that with this the kids in the remote area will get to experience what they are learning with their own eyes. Continents will no longer just stay on a two dimensional map, life science will not remain on paper, even mathematics will turn meaningful.

The issue about education in India is that students, beyond economic compulsions, do not find what they are taught meaningful as they cannot, even by highly stretched imagination, absorb the application of their learning. For urban kids with multi dimensional exposure this issue is not so overbearing.

The roadblocks however are slightly daunting. Digital educational aid is already a reality in urban English medium school. But in urban schools using local language as medium of instruction, even if their students can afford the technology, it’s not yet a feasible option as there is a huge paucity of relevant content in the local languages. This deficit is really a clincher argument for the ‘nay sayers’. They are saying that it will take decades to develop academic content in the regional languages and by the time it is deployment ready the technology will change so much that it will turn irrelevant.

Net net there is no gain saying that digital technology is a great fillip in the field of education. India stands to gain hugely from its proper utilization as an aid to instruction in class. But we should also remember that critics also have a point and we need to address it before jumping in the bandwagon.