%0 Journal Article
%A Jain, S
%A Lall, M
%A Singh, A
%D 2020
%F discovery:10118689
%J Contemporary Education Dialogue
%K COVID-19, digital gap, teachers, inequalities, government schools, private  schools, Ed-Tech
%T Teachers’ Voices on the Impact of COVID-19 on School Education: Are Ed-Tech Companies Really the Panacea?
%U https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10118689/
%X COVID-19 has brought about changes to the education system that  impact teachers in multiple ways. The article discusses the views  of affected teachers under the three-gap framework: access, usage,  and pedagogical skills gap. Between 29 April 2020, and 29 May 2020,  an online survey was administered to 550 Delhi and National Capital  Region (NCR) teachers, of which 288 responded. The data show that  the inequalities between private schools and government schools are  sharpened by the move to online education. This is compounded by the  fact that students from economically weaker sections of society have  become hard to reach, and teachers do not know how to support hardto-reach students who are also severely affected by the pandemic.  The data also show that teachers have not been trained in online  pedagogies. Ed-Tech companies have been stepping in, presenting  themselves as a panacea to the problem with further consequences  to teachers’ profession, standing, and livelihoods. However, Ed-Tech solutions are not relevant for hard-to-reach students or teachers in  schools that serve hard-to-reach communities. The article first presents  the voices of teachers affected by the pandemic and then critically  examines the role of Ed-Tech companies, which pertain to fill the online  pedagogical gap
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