The pandemic hit us in March 2020. Since then our professional life has become all virtual and from home. Even for young students, it's all online classes.
This post is about such students. India has about 23 crore students studying in class 1 to 12 (from https://www.mvorganizing.org/how-many-students-are-there-in-india-2020/).
Assuming 40% of them belong to the lower income group (LIG), the number of such students from LIG would be about 9 crore students.
Imagine if the pandemic had hit the world 5 years back in 2016. India didn't have Jio then.
Jio disturbed the internet scene in India. It's because of Jio that India has a tariff of about Rs200 (USD 3) for a month of unlimited calls to anywhere in India and about 1.5GB data per day. And it's because of Jio that other ISP's telecoms had to follow suit with similar pricing and in the end most got such a financial battering that they had to exit the business.
For some prospective on data cost see: (though figures don't seem to be accurate)
https://www.ibtimes.co.in/india-ranks-lowest-global-mobile-data-cost-thats-great-news-heres-how-839072
The figures for India and Pakistan are given below.
Rs 6 /GB in India
Rs 17/GB in Pakistan (from a friend)
Rs mentioned in this post refer to INR only.
(https://www.phoneyear.com/pakistan-has-the-second-most-expensive-mobile-data-rates-south-asia/)
As I mentioned earlier, there is an estimated 9 crore young students whose parents would be in the lower income group. These are possibly children of auto drivers, milkmen, housemaids and such.
Imagine online classes for them - meaning getting used to internet, getting a smart phone, using internet data for online classes. All these has been possible for at least some fraction of those 9 crore students
Because of Jio, a good percentage (I don't know exactly how much) has been able to continue their studies online. Of course a lot depended on whether their family had or lost their source of income. But if the family could afford their school fees and books, Jio made attending online courses very possible.
Had the pandemic hit us 5 years earlier where would those students have been?
Take Pakistan in comparison where internet costs are comparatively higher. Imagine what their LIG students are going through. Those students are likely much worse off than their Indian counterparts.
Thanks, Jio.
Disclaimer:
The author has nothing to do with Reliance and they were not paid anything by the company.
Additional reading:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/02/coronavirus-india-school-closures/
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