Why India's poorest children are falling further behind

Laxmi may never return to school. The first wave of Covid-19 hit India in early 2020 and her school closed, so her parents can't afford to send her.

The family had to borrow money from relatives to pay for Laxmi's attendance at a nearby private school.

They chose the school because they were worried she wouldn't be safe going to the school in the next village.

Her parents were concerned about the quality of teaching and the lack of toilet facilities at the public school.

I have three daughters. The oldest is Laxmi. After being educated, we thought life would be different for her.

Even though my husband and I hardly make anything, I wanted my children not to have the same life as me, says her mother, Rekha Saroj.

The new online education platforms aimed at democratising education for Indian children, for the country's most deprived households, have not been accessible.

Digitalisation of studies may be good, but what about us? Mrs Saroj says that with no access to money or the internet, how are we going to have a better future?

DIKsha is an online service for schools which has content in 32 languages and is available for children in government schools.

Although well-intentioned, these efforts seem to have had little impact on children while schools were closed. According to India's Annual Status of Education Report (Aser), only 40% of children received any learning materials from their school during the week of the survey.

The youngest children had the least access to technology. Almost a third of five to eight-year-olds don't have access to a phone to help with their learning at home, according to a report.

The report noted that the proportion of families who had contact with teachers was skewed towards better-off families.

The Indian education system is designed for privileged children and easy winners in the race.

Schools were closed for nearly two years because of pressure from parents who didn't worry about the learning gap because their children were studying online.

Children with no access to online education were more or less abandoned by the schooling system.

What could technology do to close the gulf?

Mihir Gupta is the co-founder of Teachmint, an online platform where teachers can hold lessons, distribute material and message students.

Mr Gupta said that the service reaches ten million teachers and students in 5,000 cities and towns.

He acknowledges the challenges of reaching students in poorer areas where internet connections may not be reliable.

He says that internet bandwidth variation across different parts of India is a challenge to reach more and more educators. The service has been designed to work on slower internet connections and on mobile devices.

Anjela Taneja, who heads the Inequality Campaign for charity organisation, says more needs to be done.

She says that even in families with access to high-tech or low-tech tools, children struggled to learn remotely.

Aducive environment for learning at home can often be lacking, with girls in particular suffering as they often take on household chores in addition to studying, while there is a requirement to give boys gadgets.

The government is helping support rural areas with a scheme to give them faster internet connections.

Over 50,000 government schools in India have been given broadband connections through the scheme.

The government-funded TV, radio and other education services can be used by schools who are still waiting for a connection.

There are deprived areas of UP where Shiv Kumar works. He is trying to get more children to attend school.

It is a saddening situation in Indian villages. He says it is a challenge to convince parents to send their children to school.

Many of the homes he visits lack an internet connection or a phone at home.

He has started a class to help. Mr Kumar will invite children to come and learn from him when he visits a house.

He uses his phone to teach the children Hindi.

In rural India, this type of supplementary education provides two to three hours of extra education a week but relies on the help of community volunteers.

We are talking about digitalising education, but how is that possible for parents who don't have a lot of money?

Many kids feel left behind. The window of opportunity may have closed for a sixteen-year old girl. She finished school at the age of ten.

She wanted to study but didn't have the money to do so.

I am not the only one. How is life going to change if many girls in my village don't study?