Digital divide in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The Telangana government prides itself on Hyderabad’s global IT presence and for building an incubation center, but it is unable to provide minimum computer education to students studying in government schools in the capital city.

The situation is truly sad as 78 per cent of primary schools and 45 per cent of higher secondary schools in Hyderabad do not even have computers.

Buying computers for government schools seems to be a tough job for a government that boasts of a surplus budget. For 2016-17, proposals have been made for buying computers for a meagre 24 high schools and 15 primary schools in Hyderabad. Buying of computers for high schools was initiated in 2008, but in the last eight years the government succeeded in buying computers for only 103 of the 189 high schools in Hyderabad. Of these not a single one was bought in the past five years, including after the TRS government came to po-wer 20 months ago. The last time computers were bought for high schools was in 2010-11, for 19 schools.

The picture is not rosy even in those schools where computers were bought, as none of these schools have dedicated instructors. Teachers teaching other subjects, and having hands-on experience in basics of computer usage, take out time to share their knowledge with the students.

Another serious issue is that almost half of the computers that were bought for the high schools and primary schools are not functioning due to lack of maintenance. In some cases it is a problem of mice cutting through computer wires, rendering them useless.

District education officer Somi Reddy said, “As of now teachers trained in handling computers are not teaching computers to schoolkids.

Computer teachers have not been recruited yet because an agency has not been selected to hire and train computer teachers.”

A student of the Aliya Government High School in Gunfoundry said, “Many of us are from such backgrounds that we cannot afford a computer at home. While joining the school our parents and us expected that we would get a chance to work on computers but it has not been possible.”

State school kids find it harder to catch up
The digital divide is growing wider with every passing year in Telangana as many students graduate from private high schools with basic knowledge of computers while their counterparts in government high schools pass out without even getting a chance to operate a computer.

In many private CBSE schools children of Classes IX and X are taught basics of programming languages like C, C++ and Java as part of their curriculum.

Even in private schools that follow the State Board syllabus, children are taught basics of computers in air-conditioned computer labs.

In government high schools, even though there exists a 10-mark theory paper on computer education in Class X, many students drop this paper as it is voluntary. This is because they have never operated a computer in school due to lack of infrastructure.

The principal of a government high school said, “Our students are no less competent than private school students but the government is failing to encourage them by providing even a computer while kids in private schools are operating tabs.”

Prof. S. Ramachandram, principal of Osmania University College of Engineering said, “The government is now talking of Digital India. It should start from the school level itself if the digital divide has to be filled between the digital haves and have-nots. In first year Engineering, the difference between students of government and private schools is amply visible as many of the former have to try harder to understand the programming languages. Poor soft skills add to their difficulties. It takes a while for them to attain parity with students from private schools.”