90% of UP government students do not download Diksha app | Meerut News

Meerut: 1 out of 10 students at primary and secondary levels in UP government schools have downloaded the Deeksha app introduced by NCERT in 2017, in which the education system across India has relied heavily on the need to close infectious classrooms. .
With schools reopening in UP, the only students appearing to the boards are those who have been asked to attend classes in person with all the Govt precautions. Everyone else is dependent on distance learning. Nevertheless, only 11% of all public school students in the state – many of whom belong to the most backward sections – have downloaded the app, which contains extensive lessons on video and text, an education official said.
It is worst in eight districts – Badohi, Prayagaraj, Bahraich, Sravasti, Shamli, Gautam Budh Nagar, Lakhimpur Kerry and Ray Bareilly – where only 1% have downloaded the app. In four districts – Bulandshahr, Pallia, Kushinagar and Badan – it is not even 1% of all students.
UP School Education Managing Director Vijay Kiran Anand has sought clarifications from the basic Siksha officers of the non-functioning districts and asked them to come up with plans to improve access.
Although Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of learning sessions in use in the country (about 11 crore), the coverage is low, which is 10% (115 crore) of the total across the country – due to the number and size of students in the state. Its government schools have 1.59 crore students at primary and secondary levels.
Lucknow is the only district with good coverage, with 84% and Ghaziabad with 31%. Kanpur and Varanasi came in third with 26% each. All other districts recorded less than 20% utility downloads.
However, the problem may not be one that can be solved immediately. In most cases, this is a gap in the infrastructure – the application only runs on Android devices, requires Android 4.4 (KitKat) and above, and requires a stable Internet connection.
So, for now, most students have to do WhatsApp and off-app downloads, they are easy to work with and do not consume much data. “Some are going to take books to their schools,” said Yadika Pundeer, an elementary school teacher in Meerut. “Not everyone has an Android phone. Some people with a smartphone do not know how to download apps and then use them. ”