By Lieke Kuiper
Researchers in the US discovered the existence of a so-called ‘homework gap’ when they studied how children adapt to home schooling due to Corona. This ‘homework gap’ means that children lack the access to internet needed to do their homework. These children, mostly from lower-income households face the risk of getting severely behind on their schoolwork. Especially black teens faced this problem, according to the American researchers. As much as 25% of black teens cannot do their schoolwork due to lack of reliable internet access. Where they could use school Wi-Fi at first to compensate, now they cannot do anything.
Not only poor or black teens face disproportionate difficulties regarding home schooling. Also children living in rural areas. One teacher said that only half of his students have access to internet. Because he did not want the other half to get behind on their school work, this teacher has started teaching classes on public parking lots. Still, according to this teacher, millions of children have been left to ‘fend for themselves’ and thus cannot keep up with their school work. Estimates of Microsoft state that about 163 million Americans do not have reliable high-speed internet at home. This estimate thus supports the claim that millions of American children are currently denied their right at education.
While the US government already knew about the ‘homework gap’ long before Corona came along, it was never prioritised to fix the problem. Now we see the result of that policy; millions of young children suffering from a violation of one of their basic human rights: access to proper education.
This discrimination based on income is not only a problem in the US. On Bonaire, poor students cannot finish their school due to lack of access to laptops. While the government has counted the amount of families in need of laptops and has even provided for them. The step of getting those laptops to the students in need is hard. Even though Bonaire is only a small island, planes are often needed to get the laptops to where they are needed. Corona has shut down airplane traffic, however, and thus poor students on Bonaire remain without laptops and access to school.
Another example is the Netherlands. One of the wealthiest countries in Europe. Still, schools cannot get in touch with about 7000 students. Which means that in all probability these students do not have access to education. Teachers in the Netherlands report that in some classes only 10% of the students follow the digital classes. Especially in poor and large families is there a lack of children following their home schooling schedule. Many of these children help their parents with the household instead of going to school. Parents need the children to help, because they do not have the choice to stop working. While some children do not have access to internet or a laptop, this problem is mostly solved by schools and the government providing for both. In well digitalised countries such as the Netherlands the discrimination between poor and rich thus takes another form. Where the government provides in materials needed for home schooling, poor parents cannot let their children do their schoolwork because they are needed to help care for the family. Next to that, the government cannot provide for everyone and there is thus a large group of children that remains without access to internet or laptops.
In China, furthermore, the discrimination between poor and rich shows better when we look at geographics. Here, the poor students are mostly from rural areas where there is no internet or access to laptops. While schools tried to make the homework accessible through smartphones, something that most students have, the lack of reliable internet connections still poses a large problem. The lack of access to internet and laptops or tablets is seen in virtually all countries. In the UK, there even was a lawsuit about the discrimination of poor families regarding their right to education.
In countries such as the US and the Netherlands, the digitalisation of education is a long existing tradition. Thus, the sudden switch to making all education digital was not that big of problem. For children with access to internet, there is thus a reliable way to continue their education. In countries, however, were this digitalisation of education had not yet started, the problem is thus not so much the discrimination between poor and rich, but the general lack of education for children.
In South-Korea for example, physically being present at school is important. Parents start schooling their children from a very young age, send them to various tutoring classes and try to get them in the best universities. Providing in high-quality education is very important in South-Korea. The problem however, is that the focus has been mainly on analogue education. Thus, when schools closed, there were barely any online facilities, resulting in parents teaching their own children. Schools are working hard to provide online classes and by now some have done so. However, the students in their final years are prioritised, meaning that younger students might not get the education they deserve. Some Korean schools have therefore reopened their doors, which might in turn jeopardise national health. Yet again, where countries such as South-Korea too are making the switch to digital schooling, poorer students might suffer disproportionately from the lack of adequate internet.
Another problem relating to online schooling that discriminates between the rich and the poor is food. In the US and other countries many schools provide free food to their students. For many poor children these meals might be the only ones they get. Now that the schools have closed their doors; how do they get food? While some schools have found other ways to distribute food to their poorer students or have even reopened their doors for the poor, many poor families still suffer from the lack of food and access to school.
All in all, poor families, especially those of minority groups, with large families or those living in rural areas, suffer disproportionately from the decision to close all schools to fight Corona. Not only do these students battle with the ‘homework gap’, they also risk falling behind at school, which might jeopardise their future, and they miss essential meals. The discrimination they suffer is thus threefold: 1) they are discriminated on the basis of the low family-income; 2) they are denied their basic human right of access to proper education and; 3) they are denied their basic human right to have access to food.
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