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Tribal girl, family toil on others’ farmlands to buy smartphone for online classes
With no books and no mobile phone, Kavita Nisika could not attend online classes and almost dropped out till her teachers called up her uncle in May to ask why she was not attending classes
A 19-year-old tribal girl in Odisha’s Rayagada district had to work on farmlands along with her widowed mother and older sister to buy a mobile phone so that she could attend virtual classes.
After being unable to attend online classes for about a year, Kavita Nisika, a Kondh tribal girl from Hadia village in Rayagada, bought an Android phone last month from the money she and her family saved after working on others’ farmlands. As her village does not have mobile phone connectivity, she shifted to Rayagada town, 40km away, and rented a house along with a couple of her friends to attend her BA first year class online.
“I missed an entire year’s class last year as I did not have a mobile phone. We don’t own a house or farmland,” said Nisika over the phone.
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“Though my widowed mother and older sister don’t earn enough by working in others’ fields, this year they somehow managed to buy me a phone and arrange money so that I can pay room rent in Rayagada town.”
After completing her Class 12 from Bhubaneswar’s Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), last year, Nisika enrolled for BA in the same institute. Nisika had joined KISS when she was in Class 3 and has stayed in the hostel since then. Though she hoped to rejoin her BA classes, the announcement of a nationwide lockdown put paid to her hopes.
Her college then started online classes during lockdown. With no books and no mobile phone, she could not attend online classes and almost dropped out till her teachers called up her uncle in May to ask why she was not attending classes.
“My college teacher told my uncle that I would end up having arrears if I don’t appear for the semester exams. For a few days, I borrowed my cousins’ mobile phones, but it was very inconvenient. I could write the exams last month after my friends helped me with notes,” she said.
Once she completes her BA, Nisika will be the first graduate from her village.
Rayagada district collector Saroj Mishra said the administration will try to help her. “Mobile phone connectivity is a major issue in most of the tribal districts of the state, including Rayagada,” he said.
Since July last year, all schools and colleges in Odisha have been conducting online classes for their students through Google Meet, Zoom, Skype, Whatsapp and other digital platforms. But with 20% of the state’s 51,311 villages without mobile phone connectivity, many school and college students like Nisika have been deprived of education since last year. Odisha school and mass education minister Samir Ranjan Dash recently admitted that of the 600,000 school students, the state government could hardly reach 220,000 children last year. As per the report by the school and mass education department, the number of children who attend online classes through a smartphone was 31.95%. At least 80% of the parents of these children in Malkangiri, Kandhamal, Nabarangpur, Rayagada and Deogarh districts did not have a smartphone before.
The state government has now decided to start offline classes for classes 10 and 12 from July 26 due to problems in online education.
