Digital divide affecting children’s learning has devastating impact: Unicef

The digital divide faced by children during the long closure of educational institutions in Bangladesh during the Covid-19 pandemic has a devastating impact on their learning, finds a study.

This extraordinary scale of the impact arising from remote learning was revealed on Thursday in the National Survey on Children's Education in Bangladesh 2021. 

Fewer than one in five children (18.7%) in Bangladesh participated in remote learning during Covid-19 school closures, which at one and a half years were among the longest pandemic school closures in the world.

The survey jointly run by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and UNICEF shows that the hardest hit are the most vulnerable children who have limited access to the Internet and TV, and who lack supportive devices such as computers or smartphones at home. 

Only 15.9% children from rural areas participated in remote learning, such as online and televised, compared to  28.7% from urban areas.

Significant geographical disparities also come to the fore with the highest 23.4% of students remotely participating in classes in Khulna followed by 23.1% in Dhaka. The lowest 5.7% of participation was reported in Mymensingh.

The youngest children carry the heaviest burden as participation in remote classes was lower among primary school children with a 13.1% participation. 

The rate was 20.3% in lower secondary level followed by 23.7% in upper secondary.

"The pandemic's impact on children is still reverberating throughout the country. It is critical to close the digital divide and to make the education system more responsive," said Mr. Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Bangladesh.

UNICEF provides technical assistance to the Government in support of learning recovery and acceleration, including on innovative remedial education.