Dhaka: Only two-thirds of the world's school-age students do not have internet at home, according to a new report from the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The report was released in a press release on UNICEF's website on Tuesday (December 1).
The report, entitled ‘How many children and young people have internet access at home?’ reveals that 130 crore school children between the ages of 3 and 17 worldwide do not have internet connection at home. The same is true of young people aged 15-24. Eighty-three percent (65 crore) of the young population do not have internet connection.
The report is based on data from more than 85 countries.
A new report by UNICEF-ITU said that children and young people from poor families, rural and low-income families are lagging far behind their peers. They have very little chance of reaching the same category again with their classmates.
In low-income countries, less than 1 in 20 school-age children have an Internet connection at home. In high-income countries, 9 out of 10 children have an Internet connection at home.
There are also geographical disparities across the country and region in Internet use. The number of school-aged children between the ages of 3 and 17 who do not have Internet at home is 6 percent (44 crore 90 lakh) in South Asia, 32 percent (18 crore 30 lakh) in East Asia and the Pacific, and 95 percent (19 crore 40 lakh ) in West and Central Africa. East and South Africa 6 percent (19 crore 10 lakh), the Middle East and North Africa 75 percent (8 crore 90 lakh), Latin America and the Caribbean 49 percent (7 cror 40 lakh ) and Eastern Europe and Central Asia 42 percent (3 crore 80 lakh). School-age children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are the most affected. About 9 out of 10 children there are out of internet facilities.
The UNICEF-ITU report expressed concern that the situation could be exacerbated by inequality in purchasing power, lack of proper parental preparation to keep children safe online, lack of internet access for girls and low level of digital skills.
Meanwhile, data from the Multi-Indicator Cluster Survey conducted by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and UNICEF in 2019 revealed in a press release that 62% of households in Bangladesh do not have access to the Internet.
In Bangladesh, only 7.6 percent of the poorest 20 percent of households have access to the Internet. In the case of the richest 20 percent families, the rate is 85.3 percent.
Television, another major medium of distant education, is said to have 51 per cent households nationally. Out of the poorest 20 per cent households, only 4.6 per cent households have television. Among the richest 20 percent families, the rate is 90.2 percent.
Tomo Hozumi, UNICEF Representative in Bangladesh, said in a press release that children who do not have access to these means of distant learning are being hit the hardest by digital divisions and inequalities. During the pandemic they had less opportunity to get an education. It has messed up their education and future.
He added that this division has exacerbated the already existing inequality. It can perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty and inequality from one generation to the next, with children becoming its bearers.
According to a report by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), about 150 crore children worldwide do not have access to online classes. In remote areas where internet services have not reached, children are most at risk of taking classes.
Incidentally, all educational institutions, including schools and colleges, have been closed for several months after the coronavirus infection spread around the world. Many countries have introduced online education as an alternative to the idea of not allowing children to be interrupted in their studies. However, lakhs of children are being deprived of that facility. Especially the situation in the third world countries is more deplorable.