Executive Summary
Public Education in India
Edtech in India
Data Governance in Education - Opportunities
Appendix
Toolkit
Data Governance in Education - Opportunities
As illustrated in the previous section technology has created a dent in education but its advancement needs to be supported by responsible data practices. Otherwise our tryst with innovation will remain somewhat pale and anxious with the threat of digital harm always lurking.
This section starts with a commentary on how education, technology, and data are perceived in India to provide the larger milieu against which our provocations may be read. These provocations are organised stakeholder-wise to emphasize the importance of collective action in change.
- Policymakers
- Frontline administrators
- Parents
- Teachers
- Service providers
- Students
Good Education = Better Life
Education is highly aspirational in India. People believe that it can lead to upward mobility. A good school provides all those soft, intangible assets, which get us ahead in life. Skills, etiquette, and the right friend circle. (This idea of education is prevalent in other stratified societies too. The Chinese think that a well-reputed university can get their children suzhi (素质), which denotes social class amongst other qualities.)[1] But the pressure to perform well can be so intense that students often suffer from debilitating stress, and mental health problems.
Add tech to the mix and it can get worse.
Challenges
Most Indians have an optimistic view of technology. They are game for any new idea or innovation that helps them know more, upskill, and get an edge over their peers. In 2020 Google found that 4 out of 5 Indians use YouTube to learn with videos.[2] But the public understanding of data is naive.
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People are unaware of the current discourse on digital rights because of linguistic barriers. Most information on these topics is available in English that does not cater to local needs and awareness gaps. This affects their ability to visualise data harm, which is anyway a vast and nebulous concept. |
Even when language is not a barrier, the kitchen talk on data can be shallow. Some people acerbically joke that consent and privacy are not intrinsic to Indian culture, where one is expected to obey their higher ups without question. |
Collecting personal data at scale has also been normalised with government schemes like Aadhaar. People think privacy is a collateral for state-driven digitisation. This undermines the freedom of choice in virtual transactions as journalist and activist Nikhil Pahwa explains in this interview. |
“In the early days of conversation around ‘privacy’ people used to say India is such a social country. If you are sitting with someone on a train they will know your life history by the time you are done with that journey. But we always have some information that we don’t broadcast to everyone. Something that is private to us.”
Nikhil Pahwa, Digital Rights Activist and Journalist
This creates a fertile ground for improper conduct by private players. Some startups ‘persuade’ parents to buy edtech products for their children lest they get left behind, thereby adding to a family’s academic anxiety.[3]
These companies employ whatever tactics they can to expand their user base because their valuation depends on reach and engagement (not learning outcomes). How many people signed up for their platform? How long did they stay on it for? They must function like Uber, Amazon or any other tech provider. Attracting, acquiring, and profiling markets to further attract, acquire and profile.[4]
You can also read about India’s dark economy, where all kinds of data is sold.
“They told me my daughter doesn’t even know basic things. How will a girl from such a small town compete in a national-level exam? The sales scheme [they] have going, scaring people – this is wrong.”
Hard Sells And ‘Toxic’ Targets: How Indian Edtech Giant Byju’s Fuels Its Meteoric Rise, Rest Of World
Read full story here. (Though this is a description of the B2C segment it helps in understanding how edtech is positioned – and pushed forward – in Indian society. The commercial sector has a greater presence in the public domain than some of the non-profits we spoke of in the previous section.)
PROVOCATION #1
How might we improve the data literacy of all those who are directly or indirectly involved in public education?
PROVOCATION #2
How might we encourage a new metric for success in edtech? One that promotes the overall wellbeing of students – not just their academic growth? This necessarily means opening up the industry and society’s imagination of education, technology, and data for the three are entangled.
Above the Law
The question of data literacy is all the more crucial because India does not have a robust law for edtech yet.
The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (PDP) places heavy restrictions on any “fiduciary” who collects and processes children’s data of any kind. But the government – and its agencies – can exempt themselves from it. They can access de-identified data of any citizen (including minors) without declaring a specific objective. This essentially grants them immunity against regulation.[5]
PROVOCATION #3
How might we nurture a bottom-up movement for better data security? In particular, can we find new ways to involve those who are disillusioned by the public system?
Policymakers
Most edtech solutions are not rigorously tested for their efficacy. This leads to ad hocery, where policymakers tend to choose those products, services, or interventions that have a high token value to gain people’s favour. And they are rarely questioned by their colleagues because the work culture in public education is highly hierarchical.
Mindspark conducted a research study on the effectiveness of their software with J-PAL thrice. This is considered a watershed moment for edtech in India. But most other startups use star power to sell their products.
Like the public, state officials too have a skewed understanding of data. They consider it an economic asset like oil that can be collected now for future benefits.[6]
“Everyone [in the administration] wants data but they don’t know what to do with it. We get these requests all the time and we ask them if they will use it, but they never actually do.”
EDTECH PROVIDER (NON PROFIT)
PROVOCATION #4
How might we enable policymakers to evaluate and choose the right edtech solutions for their constituency? Within that, how might we get them to give appropriate weightage to data practices in their decision-making?
Frontline Administrators
Cluster coordinators can get last-minute demands to submit data leaving them swamped with paperwork. They tend to collect the same information again and again because of poor synchronicity between the block and district offices. This leaves them with no time to support the schools under their purview, which is also their mandate, leading to resentment. A study by Accountability Initiative noted that cluster coordinators use terms like “postmen” and “clerk” to describe themselves – when in fact they are teachers by qualification.[7]
Interactions with block officials are largely one-sided, top down, transactional and almost entirely around data requirements that are often initiated by the seniors – this is common across the states.
MAPPING WORKFLOWS OF FRONTLINE EDUCATION ADMINISTRATORS: CLUSTER RESOURCE CENTRE COORDINATORS IN BIHAR, ACCOUNTABILITY INITIATIVE
Click here to read our case study on Edtech Tulna
The Central Square Foundation developed Edtech Tulna in collaboration with IIT Bombay to support decision-makers. This was done in light of the fact that most policymakers do not have the capacity to evaluate edtech tools in the procurement process. So they would end up going for hardware solutions alone given that hardware, being tangible, has a clearer evaluation criteria.
Tulna enables users to compare different edtech solutions and choose the right one for their institution/s based on the design of the product. But it does not have any indicator for data practices because it does not yet deal with the backend architecture of edtech, which is a distinct component of its own.
Edtech Tulna uses the visual metaphor of a marketplace, denoting consumer welfare – not digital rights, because it is currently focussed on reducing the information asymmetry around software products for education.
Product Design
- Content Quality
- Benchmarks for ensuring the presence of high-quality content
- Pedagogical Alignment
- Benchmarks for ensuring of pedagogical strategies informed by theory and national educations policies.
- Technology & Design
- Benchmarks for ensuring design of meaningful user interaction informed by sound design principles.
PROMPT
View Jan Banning’s series on Bureaucratics that portrays the quotidian life of frontline administrators across the world. The paraphernalia in each picture tells us something about paper trails, and their broader work culture. What do you observe?
Image Credit: Jan Banning (https://www.janbanning.com/gallery/bureaucratics/)
PROVOCATION #5
How can we make our data practices more meaningful – and effective – for frontline administrators?
Parents
Worldover, children feel that their parents are not well-equipped to protect them in the virtual world – and India is no different.[8] Here too the older generation does not know as much about privacy, data harm, and pay-offs to navigate digital products effectively.
Many of our experts observed how parents were apprehensive about e-learning during the pandemic. In most households, children don't have a device of their own. They tend to borrow one from the elders to chat, play, and watch content when they can.
So mobile phones symbolise leisure or entertainment, and parents find it difficult to imagine that they can be used otherwise. In addition to that they were not accustomed to gamification. (The interface of many learning applications looks un-serious.)
“Children from all parts of the world want parental involvement, but they feel that parents are hampered by a lack of knowledge and skills.”
OUR RIGHTS IN A DIGITAL WORLD, 5RIGHTS FOUNDATION
Read full report here
So it was essential for an authority figure (like teachers) to broker trust and handhold parents through their tech journey.
The process of informed consent in particular is difficult due to language barriers and jargon. It needs greater care given that it is intrinsic to the idea of privacy.
“We had to get their consent offline. We drew up a basic form and translated it into local languages. But our programme team felt it was too difficult for parents. They would get alarmed and not allow their adolescent girls to join the platform. So we went door-to-door to get their consent, offline… We still can’t tell how many of them truly understood knew what they were signing up for.”
EDTECH PROVIDER (NON PROFIT)
PROVOCATION #6
How might we work with communities to design more meaningful consent protocols? Perhaps: the first step is to study their conception of data harm, benefit, and privacy that can be different from the mainstream.
Teachers
Teachers can feel overwhelmed by the prospect of syncing their classroom instruction with edtech given how stressful their routine already is. In addition to that, they may not have a say in decision-making given the skewed power dynamics in public education. But their role is pivotal: teachers are the face of their institutions. As mentioned on the earlier slide parents look to them for confidence and guidance in enlisting their kids for edtech.
Read Slides 11 & 12 to get a better understanding of this topic.
“Teacher training is very critical for they hold the student's experience of edtech. They can facilitate the dialogue around choice between parents, students, service providers, and the administration.”
MOZFEST WORKSHOP, PARTICIPANT
PROVOCATION #7
How might we empower teachers such that:
- they can use data more effectively and meaningfully in their routines?
- they can be better data stewards for their communities?
Service Providers
Edtech companies need a strong business case for good data practices because they operate in a highly competitive environment. They are more likely to change from within when they see that building resilient systems is good, sustainable and profitable. The edtech industry has earned bad press in the recent past for false advertising, puffery, and other malpractices. Some startups banded up to create a Consortium for self-regulation. But in this panel discussion by CNBC TV18 you may observe how this step was taken to avoid public action that is viewed as a “hindrance” or “roadblock” to growth.
Most of their decisions are driven by engagement. Edtech companies have to provide a stimulating experience to ensure that their users stay on after they have been onboarded.
But it is not easy to design for the Indian context that is replete with individual and infrastructural barriers. Small and shared devices, low storage, multiple languages, patchy Internet – the list goes on. With so much to take care of, data privacy takes a back seat.
Most developers also only have a notional understanding of digital rights and appropriate practice.
“A lot of decisions are driven by UX. We need a checklist of five to six strong data principles for designers too, that they can bake into their work.”
EDTECH PROVIDER (NON PROFIT)
PROVOCATION #8
How might we incentivise good data practices in education such that service providers prioritise privacy across all verticals of work?
Students
Many students in the public system are first generation learners (FGL). They are not accustomed to the state apparatus and therefore depend more on their school principal and/or teachers – whoever they favour. Even if that were not the case, it is a challenge to get children a seat at the table. They are often patronised or unconsidered by their parents, and policymakers. It is not customary to ask a child’s opinion even when the matter at hand pertains to them. (We have covered this point in a different way on Slide 29 to explain how Indians view ‘consent’).
Yet students have their own way of helping each other. Most cohorts have a peer leader (often, boys) who share hacks and tricks to navigate authority better.
PROVOCATION #9
How might we create an environment where students have a fair say in data-related decisions that affect them?