Digital Inequities and Digital Inclusion in Education: An Agenda for the Post-COVID-19 World

Abstract

COVID-19 exposed a wide range of challenges hidden unnoticed in the promise of digital education. Digital education was once promised as the grand equalizer of access and inclusion in education. However, the massive deployment of digital tools in the educational realm during COVID-19 provided significant counterevidence to this promise. If education is a fundamental right and if digital technologies are the only way to gain access to education, it is important that these technologies be made available to everyone for effective use. However, as COVID-19 would demonstrate to us, this has not been the case. There have been stark and widespread inequities in the availability and quality of digital technologies for education, and the need for purposeful efforts to bridge the gap was felt prominently. In the backdrop of COVID-19, this chapter identifies some of the key equity issues and proposes solutions to address them.