Open schooling: Odisha kids cross State border chasing Internet connectivity

‘We also carry mats with us. We sit down for online classes upon finding connectivity.’

For Sony Sanjukta Dung Dung, a geographical border does not mean all that much. Though she stays in a remote Odisha village, on most days she leads a group of students to Jharkhand so that they can all study. At a time when millions of learners were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Rangamati, Ms. Sanjukta’s village in Odisha’s Sundargarh district under the Kutra block, is no exception. Children of Rangamati are deprived of online education owing to the lack of access to the Internet. Ms. Sanjukta, who belongs to a tribal community and has studied till Class 12, soon realised that the lack of connectivity did not only limit access to education, it also rendered children vulnerable to being forced to work from a very early age.