Fuel saved, futures lost | India cannot afford online classes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent advice to shift towards online classes as a strategic response to the global energy crisis reveals a significant conflict between macroeconomic needs and educational fairness.

While the policy is designed to reduce fuel use due to soaring crude oil prices, it fails to account for the limitations within India’s digital infrastructure. Economically, this shift presumes a level of digital preparedness that most people still lack. When the government enforces virtual learning as a substitute for physical classroom access, it unintentionally transfers the expense of public services onto individual families, burdening those most vulnerable at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

Teacher shortages and online education

The idea of virtual schooling is infeasible when examined in the context of India’s teacher shortages, which undermine the public education infrastructure. Data indicate a backlog of over 7,22,000 vacant teaching positions at the elementary level and over 1,24,000 at the secondary level. Attempting to translate an educational ecosystem experiencing a shortfall of nearly one million trained professionals into a digital format does not inherently augment instructional capacity; instead, it significantly increases the operational burden on the already overstretched and exhausted teaching workforce.

The assumption that digital platforms can compensate for institutional deficiencies reflects a technologically deterministic view of education. In practice, online education often demands greater pedagogical preparation, individualised monitoring, digital literacy, and emotional labour from teachers. With existing shortages compromising pupil-teacher ratios and educational quality, the shift to virtual schooling may intensify teacher burnout, reduce learning effectiveness, and widen educational inequalities across regions, classes, and genders.

Rather than resolving structural weaknesses in the education system, an overreliance on online schooling risks institutionalising a fragmented and unequal model of education that undermines both learning outcomes and the broader developmental objectives of schooling.

The widespread transition to online education poses a significant threat to students' holistic development. Educational institutions serve not only as places for academic learning but also as environments that promote socialisation, emotional maturity, discipline, peer interaction, and the cultivation of interpersonal skills. Amidst a critical shortage of teachers, the shift to virtual learning risks reducing educational experiences to mere transactional interactions through screens, thereby undermining meaningful engagement between teachers and students.

Digital divide and educational quality

The question of educational quality further complicates the case for large-scale virtual schooling. The 2024 Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) indicates that foundational learning levels remain fragile despite recent post-pandemic improvements. In rural India, only 33.7% of Class 3 students could perform basic subtraction in 2024, while only 30.7% of Class 5 students could solve division problems expected at the primary level. Among youth aged 14-18, more than half still struggled with basic division problems, and nearly one-fourth could not read a Class 2-level text fluently in their regional language. These findings suggest that even within physical schooling systems, foundational learning deficits persist, raising concerns that an excessive reliance on virtual instruction may further weaken educational quality, particularly for students who require direct pedagogical support.

Access to digital infrastructure also remains highly unequal. Although ASER 2024 reports that 89.1% of adolescents aged 14-16 had access to a smartphone at home, only 31.4% of those with access owned one. More importantly, only 65.9% of adolescents had a smartphone available for digital tasks during the survey, revealing a substantial gap between nominal access and functional availability. Shared devices within households, irregular Internet connectivity, and unequal access across gender and class create significant barriers to sustained online learning. The digital divide is not merely technological but deeply socio-economic.

Evidence indicates that mere access to digital devices does not lead to meaningful engagement in educational activities. The same study revealed that among adolescents who used smartphones, a markedly higher percentage reported engaging with social media (76%) compared to educational content (57%). Additionally, gender disparities are apparent, with boys exhibiting greater access, ownership, and digital competency than girls.

Within this context, the presumption that digital platforms can supplant traditional classroom instruction risks exacerbating existing educational inequalities. An unplanned transition to online learning may disproportionately affect rural students, girls, and students from socio-economically disadvantaged households that lack reliable digital resources and conducive home learning environments.

Given the ongoing shortages of qualified teachers and insufficient digital infrastructure, an overreliance on virtual education threatens to widen the rural-urban divide, reinforce gender disparities, and compromise both educational quality and continuity. Consequently, fiscal austerity measures must not be pursued at the expense of public education, as reduced investment in education today could engender significant long-term social and developmental repercussions for the nation.

Atman Shah is Assistant Professor, Economics Department, St Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Ahmedabad.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.