Bharat EdTech Survey 2023 - Access and Usage Data

Based on the Bharat Survey for EdTech (BaSE) Report 2023, the following numerical data details access to technology and subsequent EdTech usage among the surveyed households and children:

Access to Technology

Households and Device Ownership

The survey covered 6030 households and 9867 children across 6 states (Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Odisha, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh).

• Electricity Access: Households reported near-universal access to electricity (99%). Urban households had electricity for an average of 23 hours per day, compared to 19 hours per day in rural households.

• Smartphone Ownership: 85% of the surveyed households owned at least one smartphone.

  • Nearly one-third (32%) of households owned more than 1 smartphone.

  • Average smartphone ownership per household was 1.4.

  • Urban households reported a per capita ownership of 1.5 smartphones, versus 1.3 in rural households.

  • 48% of households owned feature phones (phones without internet access).

• Primary Possessors: Fathers were the primary possessors of smartphones in 66% of surveyed households, followed by mothers at 36% and children at 20%.

• Barriers to Ownership: Among households without a smartphone, 97% of respondents cited the “cost of the device” as the most prominent reason for non-ownership.

• Income and Ownership: The average annual income of a family that owned a smartphone was INR 1.20 lakhs, while for a family without a smartphone, the average annual income was INR 0.81 lakhs.

Child-Level Smartphone Access and Usage

• Overall Access: 72% of all children had access to smartphones.

• Type of Access:

  • Shared access was reported by 66% of children.

  • Dedicated access was reported by 6% of children. A higher proportion of children with dedicated access were from rural households (7%) compared to urban households (3%).

• Access by Grade: Children in secondary grades (9-12) had greater dedicated access (16%) compared to middle grades (6-8) at 5% and primary grades (1-5) at 1%.

• Device Used: In households where both mothers and fathers possessed a smartphone, 86% of children used their mother’s smartphone, and 23% used their father’s smartphone.

• Non-Usage: 16% of children in households with smartphones were not using them. This non-usage was higher in rural households (18%) compared to urban households (10%).

  • The primary reason for non-usage cited by parents/guardians was the absence of the ’need for smartphones’ (43%).

  • The risk of children ’navigating to unsafe content’ was cited more for children in secondary grades (41%) compared to primary grades (27%).

• Daily Usage: More than 60% of children who had access to smartphones used them daily. Children in secondary grades used them daily at a higher rate (69%) than those in primary grades (58%).

• Session Time: 74% of children had more than 30 minutes of session time on smartphones on a given day.

  • 62% of children with ‘dedicated access’ spent more than 1 hour on the smartphone, compared to 24% of children with ‘shared access’.

Internet Access

• Accessibility: Internet was reported to be accessible to nearly all children using smartphones.

• Intermittent Access: Around 50% of children had intermittent access to the internet.

  • This intermittent access was primarily due to the exhaustion of internet recharge, reported by 93% of respondents.

EdTech Usage

User Demographics

• Overall EdTech Users: 51% of children across surveyed households were ‘present users’ of EdTech.

  • 41% had never used technology for learning, and 8% had discontinued using it.

• Settlement Differences: Urban households had a higher prevalence of ‘present users’ (57%) compared to rural households (48%).

• Grade Differences: ‘Present users’ were highest in secondary grades (72%) and middle grades (55%), compared to primary grades (39%).

Methods of Learning

• Self-Learning: 50% of surveyed children reported self-learning through EdTech.

  • Children in secondary grades (71%) were more likely to be self-learning than children in primary grades (38%).

  • 88% of children with dedicated access used EdTech for self-learning, compared to 69% of children with shared access.

• Teacher-Directed Learning: About 1 in 3 children (32%) received ’teacher-directed materials’ through digital mediums. Children in urban households (43%) were more likely to receive these materials than those in rural households (28%).

Tools, Subjects, and Reasons

• Most Used Tools: YouTube was the most popular tool used for learning purposes (89%), followed by WhatsApp (62%) and Google (52%). Low-tech tools such as text messages (8%), TV (7%), and IVRS (7%) had low prevalence.

• Most Studied Subjects: English (84%) and Mathematics (76%) were the most studied subjects using EdTech tools.

• Reasons for Usage:

  • Ease of understanding complicated topics: 53%.

  • Self-paced learning: 47%.

  • Doubt clarification: 42%.

• Appreciated Features: The ‘speed of learning’ enabled by EdTech tools was appreciated by 54% of present users.

• Reasons for Non-Usage (Discontinued Users): 61% cited ‘schools reopening’ after the lockdown as the most prominent reason. 30% cited the availability of other learning avenues (such as tuition).

EdTech Adoption Sentiment

• Awareness of EdTech: 86% of respondents reported awareness of technology as a medium of learning.

• Intention to Purchase: 11% of all household respondents stated an intention to purchase smartphones for learning purposes ‘within the next 6 months’. This intention was higher among those who did not already own a smartphone (26%) compared to those who did (8%).

• Association with Parental Behavior:

  • Of children whose parents/guardians could use at least one tool (Facebook/YouTube/Google), more than 60% were ‘present users’.

  • Of children whose parents/guardians were aware of EdTech, 59% were present users, compared to 0.2% of children whose parents/guardians were unaware.