Amid the digital avalanche, childhood needs a protective umbrella

Why in the News

Smartphones, apps and artificial intelligence (AI) tools are moving into India’s elementary and pre-school classrooms, though evidence of their harm to young children keeps growing. Some countries have banned smartphones in elementary schools, yet Indian school boards and States are now bringing AI into the earliest grades.

Why are screens a problem in early childhood?

1. Smartphone as babysitter and tutor: Parents use the smartphone as a babysitter, and education policymakers treat it as a learning tool. Its harm to children’s intellectual development is no longer debated.
2. Screens replace teachers: E-pedagogy, meaning teaching through digital devices, holds back intellectual and emotional growth in the early years. It also makes teaching harder in higher grades.
3. Kindergarten example: A kindergarten child whose teachers kept phones away loved rhymes, words and drawing, and showed no interest in her mother’s phone.
4. The takeaway: Early screens do not give children a head start; they crowd out the attention and play early learning needs.

What does Britain’s experience show?

1. Reading apps made compulsory: Britain made reading apps compulsory in its first wave of digital enthusiasm. Fifteen years later, many schools are returning to paper and pencil literacy and numeracy.
2. Fewer teachers: The promise of digitally assisted teaching was used to raise class sizes and cut teaching staff, so reversing course is now hard.
3. Attention deficits: Attention deficit is common among children raised on app based learning and AI assisted homework marking.
4. Widening divide: The gap between elite and middle class children is widening, as middle class children stay on e-reading. The British state has not admitted its digital spending failed.

Which way is Indian policy moving?

1. No ban: Neither the Centre nor any State has acted to keep digital devices out of elementary schools.
2. Growing investment: Public and private spending on devices for elementary schools keeps growing.
3. Pandemic habit: The pandemic made online teaching look like a substitute for real teaching. Eg. Delhi shifts schools online during pollution spells, with no check on quality.
4. Kendriya Vidyalayas: Device based teaching and testing is rising even in the Central government’s Kendriya Vidyalayas.

Why is early AI the sharpest concern?

1. AI in early grades: The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will introduce AI in Grade III, and Punjab wants it from Grade I. Some schools already use AI equipment in nursery and kindergarten.
2. “Starting early” belief: The belief that starting early helps in every field has no evidence behind it. It reflects a middle class fear of falling behind, which now drives public policy.
3. Adults versus children: New technologies can serve adults, but young children need protection from them to stay calm and spontaneous.

Challenges

1. Policy momentum: Boards and States have already announced AI for early grades, so reversal means undoing curricula.
2. Sunk investment: Money spent on devices makes governments reluctant to admit the policy has failed.
3. Parental demand: Middle class parents see early technology as an advantage and press schools to offer it.

Way Forward

1. Suo motu action: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and child rights groups should act on their own to shield small children from digital invasion.
2. Review early AI plans: CBSE and the States should test AI teaching in Grades I to III against evidence on child development.
3. Device free early years: Keep pre-primary and early primary classrooms free of digital devices.

Conclusion

India is adding screens and AI to its earliest classrooms just as Britain retreats from digital teaching. Whether the NCPCR or education authorities act before AI reaches nursery classrooms at scale is the test.

Government Initiatives for Early Childhood and Digital Education

1. National Education Policy (NEP) 2020: Creates a foundational stage for children aged 3 to 8, built on play and activity based learning.
2. PRAGYATA guidelines, 2020: The Ministry of Education’s digital education guidelines advise at most 30 minutes a day for pre-primary, spent guiding parents.
3. NIPUN Bharat, 2021: The national mission aims for every child to achieve foundational literacy and numeracy by the end of Grade 3.

Back2Basics: National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

1. Legal basis: A statutory body set up in March 2007 under the Commissions for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005, under the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
2. Mandate: It checks that laws, policies and programmes conform to child rights, and monitors the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009.
3. Suo motu power: It can act on its own when child rights are denied or violated.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2025, GS2, 15 marks] The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has to address the challenges faced by children in the digital era. Examine the existing policies and suggest measures the Commission can initiate to tackle the issue.”