In his book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how the stickiness factor and the power of context drive social trends. Nothing exemplifies it as much as the recent adoption of technology by educators.
For decades, physically challenged students and their parents have been fighting for technology to enable students. It was always rejected by schools as being too expensive and removing the environmental enablers in school. Those same schools have now jumped at the opportunity to force students to use mobile phones for classes, disregarding the financial and emotional impact on students and their parents.
There are stories aboutt parents selling cows to pay for their kid’s mobile phones and workers giving up work opportunities to allow their kids to study on the parent’s phones. But there are three deeper underlying concerns which haven’t been addressed by governments and educational institutions –
Variable costs:
A lot of parents including lower income households have bitten the bullet and purchased smartphones for their kids. What lies unstated are the variable cost (telecom connectivity & data costs, power costs , subscription costs) . Telecom firms are going to see a sharp rise in ARPU and subscriber numbers, with the average LTV of this subscriber base being much higher than earlier.
Privacy and Safety:
This new wave of subscribers has limited exposure to the pitfalls of the Internets. Specifically, to scamsters and abusers. Without suitable emotional and technical training, these kids run the risk of being damaged emotionally and financially. Further there is the additional risk of being brainwashed.The loss of a traditional school environment also robs lesser privileged kids of a chance to escape their crowded homes for a brief period and get a decent mid-day meal.
Loss of Equality:
The biggest loss for the kids is the chance to be on the same page as other children in school. In a virtual environment, the teacher has little chance to observe the behavioral cues and take action. Privileged kid’s lead over the lesser privileged increases because they have access to better food, an understanding of how to leverage technology and support from parents and peers. The lesser privileged kids also have to deal with the limited interaction with peers and teachers, thus removing a significant social aspect of their lives.
What is needed is a set of immediate actions from multiple stakeholders in the process, including telecom firms, NGOs , educational institutes and the government. We have leading telecom companies (Airtel, Jio, Vodafone) who can provide free data for students or subsidize it. In fact they could even partner with OEMs to provide cheap/free phones and charge only for annual school data packs. NGOs need to work with schools to give training and guidance on safety and privacy for the kids and if necessary, work with OEMs on ensuring parental controls.
From a long term perspective, educational institutions and governments need to figure out a new form of schooling. Either a mix of online and offline or a new Augmented reality model. Without appropriate investment from Governments and technology firms, the existing challenges will only get amplified in the coming months.
UnWired 