EPiC Series in Education Science

Education
Science
Volume 3, 2020, Pages 98–107

Proceedings of the MIT LINC 2019 Conference

Changing the state of literacy in the Digital Age

in India
Aanandita Gahlot1* and Shubhankar Gahlot2†
1
USME, Delhi Technological University, India
2
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, U.S.A.
[email protected], [email protected]

Abstract
India as an emerging economy deals with troubles in literacy due to factors like
shortage of quality academic institutions and unsuitable curriculum. Digital Technology
is accredited as something which can bridge the gap between quality institutions and
individuals and make learning more engaging.
Indian Government has made use of technology in the best possible way and launched
Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA)‡ under its Digital
India initiative. It has been initiated to make at least one individual from each household
digitally literate so that they develop the skills which will be needed to link with the
rapidly growing digital world. This scheme aims to target the rural population including
the disparaged sections of society like minorities, Below Poverty Line (BPL), women and
differently-abled people.
The use of technology in education has transmuted the whole system of education. This
paper is aimed at exploring the changing state of literacy in India after introducing
PMGDISHA.

1 Introduction
India being the second most populous country is also the youngest country in the world with 65%
of the population below the age of 35 [1]. This means that there are more than 800 million people,
getting ready as a workforce who will not only change the course of India but also the world. The major
challenge which India faces is to provide a quality education to this emerging workforce. This can only
be achieved by providing them a resourceful education that is not only enough to skill them but also
enables them to contribute to the development of the society.
The pyramid of population density in Fig. 1 indicates the pattern of age distribution in India. The
curve for India is highly voluminous till the age of 25 and then it tapers smoothly. United States has

C. Urrea (ed.), LINC 2019 (EPiC Series in Education Science, vol. 3), pp. 98–107
Changing the state of literacy in the Digital Age in India A. Gahlot and S. Gahlot

almost constant age distribution while China’s Population curve is contorted due to its one child policy.
[1]

*
Research, literature survey and writing the document
†
Mastermind and mentoring with the revisions of the document
‡ Prime Minister Rural Digital Literacy Mission

“Fig 1: Population density of India”

Fig. 1 evidently shows that India needs to strengthen its education system both at the policy as well as
infrastructure level. The existing education infrastructure is insufficient for the growing demand of the
emerging population and the only way to strengthen it is by leveraging digital technology and e-
learning. According to 2015 world bank data, India has nearly 81% and 63% literate males and females
respectively [4]. On one hand, the major drawback in the long-term education is the unsustainable
economic condition of the family that keeps a child away from pursuing education while on the other it
is the lack of proper education infrastructure in sub-urban and rural areas.
Furthermore, regions with restricted accessibility, for example north east India which are home to 39
million people have literacy level of 68.5%. The states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh have literacy
rate less than the national average. The land terrain, language barriers and other activities have
prohibited easy access for people from these states into other states and vice-a-versa [3]. Other states

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also face the similar issues. But the advent of internet and other mobile technologies has opened new
avenues for advancement. Mobile phone and internet penetration are rising rapidly with current mobile
usage at 65-75% and internet usage at 40-50%. It is estimated that mobile phone penetration and internet
penetration will reach 85-90% and 45-50% respectively by 2020 [2].

“Fig 2: Internet Users’ growth in India [2]”

Fig. 3 clearly depicts that one out of every five people in India is illiterate. As more than 70% of the
total population of India lives in rural areas, the status of literacy cannot improve without targeting them
[4].

“Fig 3: Literacy in India from 1981-2015 [4]”

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It is estimated that by 2020 more than 50% of the world’s illiterate will reside in India. This made
the government to take an initiative to introduce a digital literacy program to help people leverage the
ever-growing mobile and internet penetration. It is a mechanism through which education in the rural
India can be influenced the most. This paved the way for launching Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital
Saksharta Abhiyan (PMGDISHA) program under its Digital India initiative for spreading digital
literacy to the remote areas and underprivileged people.
The implications of the scheme have been phenomenal. Digital literacy mission has accelerated the
literacy growth in India especially in the rural parts of the country, which is very evident from the
correlation between growth in digital literacy and number of private as well as public MOOCs (Massive
Open Online Courses) registrations.

2 Education in rural India

According to census 2011, India has a highly varied literacy rate. Kerala tops the list with 93.9%
literacy rate and while Bihar has least literacy rate of 63.8%. Rural areas report a literacy rate of 68.9%
and the urban areas register 85.0% literacy, resulting in an absolute difference of nearly 16 percentage
points [5]. One of the main factors contributing to this relatively low literacy rate is shortage of school
infrastructure to accommodate all the students. Also, the average pupil teacher ratio for all India is 42:1,
implying a teacher shortage [13].
The condition becomes even worse if we take literacy in rural India into account as seen from the
table below.

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“Table 1: States with the Lowest Rural Literacy Rate [5]”

States Literacy Rate in Literacy rate in Total Literacy (%)
Rural (%) Urban (%)

Rajasthan 62.3 80.7 67.1

Jharkhand 62.4 83.3 67.6

Bihar 61.8 71.8 63.8

Andhra Pradesh 61.1 80.5 67.7

Arunachal Pradesh 61.6 82.9 67.0

The problems that India faces can be summarized as follows:

1. Large emerging youth population. [Ref Fig: 1]
2. Low literacy rate [Ref Fig: 3]
3. Huge rural population
4. Inadequate public infrastructure in rural areas.
5. Low literacy rate among women specifically, in rural areas. [Ref Table: 1]
6. Lack of proper educational infrastructure.
7. Lack of adequate number of qualified instructors. [7]
Policy intervention is needed in order to solve these problems so that it could impact a large number
of people in a very small-time span. This is where government launched the PMGDISHA program
under Digital India initiative.

3 PMGDISHA (Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta

Abhiyan)
PMGDISHA is a scheme under NDLM (National Digital Literacy Mission) initiative of Digital
India campaign which was launched in August 2014 by the government of India. Following the
successful implementation of NDLM schemes, PMGDISHA was approved by the government in
February 2017. The curriculum for the program was developed in 2014 in consultation with various
agencies like UNESCO, National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), Intel,
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), National Institute of Electronics & Information
Technology (NIELIT), National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), Indian Institute of Mass
Communication (IIMC), IT for Change, Open Knowledge Network India, and Digital Empowerment
Foundation.

3.1 Objectives
The main objective of the program is to make six million people in rural areas, across States/UTs,
by March 2019 digitally literate, reaching to around 40% of rural households by covering one member

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from every eligible household. The Scheme is aimed at empowering the citizens in rural areas by
training them to operate computer or digital access devices (like tablets, smart phones etc.), send and
receive emails, browse the Internet, access Government services, search for information, undertake
digital payment, etc. and hence enable them to use the Information Technology and related applications
especially Digital Payments to actively participate in the process of nation building. Thus, the Scheme
aims to bridge the digital divide, specifically targeting the rural population including the marginalized
sections of society like Scheduled Castes (SC) / Scheduled Tribes (ST), Below Poverty Line (BPL),
women, differently-abled persons and minorities. The ultimate aim is to cover the gap between the
rural and urban youth.

3.2 Implementation
The Scheme is implemented by using the affiliated Training Partners/Training Centers. Training
Partners/Training Centers are assigned with a specified area of operation and target preferably within
the same state. The Training Partners/Training Centers need to have basic facilities to conduct the
training as per the accreditation norms prescribed by CSC-SPV (CSC e-Governance Services India
Limited, a Special Purpose Vehicle incorporated under the Companies Act 1956).
These would include Common Service Centers (CSC), National Institute of Electronics &
Information Technology (NIELIT) Centers or its accredited Centers, Adult Literacy Centers or schools
implementing Information and Communication Technology (ICT@schools) scheme under the Ministry
of Human Resources and Development (MHRD), Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU)
centers, NGOs involved in IT literacy, Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes, Industry partners,
companies with CSR provisions, etc.
The eligible age of enrollment is 14-60 years. The duration of the course is 20 hours and it is
delivered in all official languages of India. Candidates are evaluated by a national level certifying
agency [14].

3.3 Training Fee

The candidate pays no training fee.

3.4 Registration Status

By the end of August 2018, 12,343,083 beneficiaries have been registered under the project and out
of which 12,321,098 beneficiaries have completed training from all the States/UTs. [8]

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“Table 2: Status of top 5 states as of Jan’18 [9]”

S.No. State Targets Candidates Training Certified
Registered Completed Candidates

1. UTTAR PRADESH 11171000 2432262 2390272 1131112

2. BIHAR 6630000 747778 736956 373082

3. WEST BENGAL 4481000 280368 272757 124586

4. MAHARASHTRA 4433000 493103 482997 248473

AND GOA

5. MADHYA 3784000 704085 686995 332535

PRADESH

3.5 Examination Status

PMGDISHA examination is conducted across the country and stringent with biometric authentication
of candidates by an Invigilator/Exam Superintendent. As of January 2018, a total of 5,329,989
candidates have been certified under the scheme [9]. The gender wise distribution among the certified
candidates under PMGDISHA is almost equal, with 53% males and 47% females [8].

“Fig 4: Gender wise distribution of certified candidates [8]”

4 Impact on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Internet has disrupted all industries including the education industry by exponentially reducing
infrastructure and operational costs. Therefore, online education has become a lucrative business and
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) like Coursera, Udacity, Udemy, Edx, etc. are an outcome of
this disruption. But in order to be part of this disruption one has to be digitally literate. That is where
initiatives like PMGDISHA help make people digital ready.

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Changing the state of literacy in the Digital Age in India A. Gahlot and S. Gahlot

As per 2016 statistics shared by Coursera there were 13 lakh online learners from India as compared
to the total 180 lakh online learners on Coursera. There had been a 70% jump in the enrolment of courses
by Indians. Edx, which is another MOOC platform, in 2017 has also announced 73% growth in the
Indian market over the past year. In India Coursera is growing faster than the global average, with about
2 million Indian learners enrolled in various courses, ranging from a few weeks to two years. Even
Indian government has built its own MOOC platform known as SWAYAM to leverage this digital wave
[10] [11] [12].
By year 2030, the Indian government aims to increase the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in
universities to 30% from 23% in 2014-15. And this will practically not be possible by just setting up
more traditional classrooms & universities.
Therefore, it’s very well evident from the data that this digital literacy initiative is driving the
MOOC industry in India and will keep doing so in the coming future. We will also see a greater number
of people learning from these non-traditional sources as well.

“Fig 5: Google Trends’ results for Massive Open Online Course (topic) [15]”

In fig. 5, the numbers on the vertical axis represents the search interest relative to the highest point on
the chart and horizontal axis represents the time period. A value of 100 is the peak popularity for the
term which is attained in the second half of the year 2017.
Trend line shows a rapid increase in the number of google searches for the topic MOOC which can be
attributed to increase in the internet penetration and growing digital literacy.

5 Conclusion
The best way to raise the standard of education and improve literacy in a country is to make its
citizens digitally literate as early as possible so that they can utilize the available digital tools and
technologies. This policy-based solution by government of India can become an inspiration for other

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countries to learn from and help them to raise their education standards. A small investment by the
government of India in digital education of its citizens has proved to be a huge stepping stone in making
its people self-reliant in educating themselves. Through this paper we have tried to explain how digital
literacy can change the whole education scenario. The initiative has proved to be beneficial for all
sections of the society. Due to its overwhelming success we expect other countries to follow suit and
launch such initiatives to educate their citizens.

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