Internet connectivity in government schools increased from 5.5% to 24.2% in five years

NEW DELHI: Internet connectivity in government schools in India has improved from 5.5% in 2017-18 to 24.2% in 2021-22. According to the ministry of education, apart from the UTs – Puducherry and Chandigarh which records 100% internet connections, Delhi is the only state in that list. Other states with high internet penetration are Kerala (94.6%) and Gujarat (94.2%). Rajasthan is the only other state where more than 50% of government schools have internet connections. Lowest in the rung are Bihar (5.9%), Mizoram (6%), Odisha (8.1%), and Telangana (9.2%), the only states with less than 10% of schools having internet connectivity.In a written response to a query at the Rajya Sabha by Dhananjay Bhimrao Mahadik of BJP, union minister of state for education, Annapurna Devi, said that education being in the Concurrent list, majority of the schools are under the administrative control of respective state governments and UT Administration and “An advisory has been issued by the department of school education and literacy, government of india to all the States and UTs to enter into an MoU/ Agreement with BSNL and provide FTTH Internet connection to all the Government Schools which have computing devices.”The minister further added that “For ICT Labs / Smart Class rooms sanctioned under Samagra Shiksha, internet charges can be met from the recurring charges being released under Samagra Shiksha,” and for schools where ICT / Smart Class room are not sanctioned under Samagra Shiksha, internet Charges can be met from the Management monitoring Evaluation and Research (MMER) funds being released under Samagra Shiksha or from any other State/ UT Government funds.The Centre has released Rs 2,443.02 crore for the ICT component in the last five years.As per the data shared by MoE, while there has been significant improvement in internet accessibility in government schools between 2017 and 2022, some states have made marked progress like Nagaland which improved from 1.8% to 43.4% in this period. Similarly Chhattisgarh registered a growth from 1% to 33.8% and Andhra Pradesh from 4.7% to 45%. Jammu and Kashmir too improved from 1.3% in 2017-18 to 22.3% in 2021-22 and Jharkhand from 2.7% to 33.6%.In all there are 15 States/ UTs where the number of government schools with internet connections is less than the national average of 24.2%.Some of the states where least improvement was witnessed during this period are Assam (1.5% to 10.3%), Bihar (1.4% to 5.9), Karnataka (2.1% to 10.7%), Mizoram (3.7% to 6%), and Uttar Pradesh (0.8% to 8.8%).