The blackboard has been replaced by the LED screen, the sway of the ruler with the flicker of the cursor. “My school has launched an app through which homework and class notes are sent,” says Rishikesh Chandra Roy, a class IX student in Bihar, “I attend my classes online, even while sitting at home.”

The Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown has inadvertently catalysed the steadily trotting growth of online education into a full gallop. Many K-12 schools as well as colleges have scrambled to move their curriculum online. The options being used include web platforms that offer course and reference material, video conferencing apps like Zoom to conduct ‘virtual classrooms’ and homework and study materials sent through WhatsApp and email.