Digitization in education and the social divide: a blessing or a curse?

Abstract

The current high prominence of the right to education is in contrast to its framing in international law, namely, as part of the economic, social, and cultural rights that had historically been relegated to a second-order status with state commitments being softened to progressive realization of the rights in question. Nevertheless, education has been more recently reframed as the enabler of societal progress and the realization of other rights, including civil and political ones. This puts the onus on states to double down on their efforts to progressively realize full enjoyment of the right to education beyond primary education (which is the minimum requirement) into secondary education and do so without outsourcing provision of education to other actors, such as private education technology companies. Nevertheless, digitization of education, including its transfer to online providers, is often touted as a cost-effective and future-proof solution even beyond emergency situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Problematically, such solutions are premised upon some major preconditions, such as stable connectivity, reliable power supply, device ownership, digital literacy skills, etc., which cannot be taken for granted in both developing countries but also in the more deprived regions of developed countries. Also, such education provision is likely to lead to inequalities as premium tools are unlikely to be universally available. A further matter of note is that the shift away from brick-and-mortar to online provision of education would be detrimental to disadvantaged groups (based on gender, ethnicity, etc. that would be stuck in unfavorable environments without escaping it during the process of education). Hence, it becomes evident that not only there exists a complicated relationship between digitization of learning and progressive realization of the right to education but also the overreliance on technology can have a regressive effect.