Revolutionizing Learning: The Role of Media and Technology in Education

India has roughly 250 million school-going children. Reaching every one of them – from a metro classroom in Mumbai to a hillside hamlet in Manipur – with quality education has historically been one of the country’s most daunting challenges. Over the past two decades, media and technology have emerged as the most powerful tools to bridge this gap. From satellite television channels and digital textbook apps to ICT-equipped classrooms, the integration of media and technology into education is not just a policy ambition – it is an unfolding reality, reshaping how students learn and how teachers teach.

Why media and technology matter in education 🔗

Education is no longer confined to a blackboard and chalk. The relationship between technology and education is increasingly bidirectional – technology changes how we learn, and the needs of learners drive the development of new technologies. India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recognises this clearly, emphasising the extensive use of technology in teaching and learning, removing language barriers, increasing access for students with disabilities, and improving educational planning and management.

Media – whether television, radio, or digital platforms – extends the reach of education to students who cannot access traditional schooling. Technology, on the other hand, enhances the quality and interactivity of that education once accessed. Together, they address two of the most persistent problems in public education: access and quality.

There is also a cognitive dimension to this. Research in educational psychology supports the idea that people learn better when information is presented through multiple channels – both visual and verbal. This is sometimes called the multimedia principle. When a student watches a well-produced animated video explaining photosynthesis alongside reading text, the material is processed and retained more effectively than through reading alone. This is precisely why digital and media-based learning tools are not mere supplements – they are pedagogically sound alternatives to traditional instruction.

The policy foundation: digital India and NEP 2020 🔗

India’s broader Digital India campaign, launched in 2015, set the infrastructure stage – expanding internet connectivity, promoting digital literacy, and building e-governance systems. Education became one of its central pillars. According to data from the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), digital hardware availability in schools rose from 34% in 2019-20 to 57% in 2023-24, and internet access improved from 22% to 54% over the same period. This is significant progress, though challenges remain – particularly in government schools, where only about 44% had digital infrastructure and 30% had internet access as of 2023-24.

NEP 2020 goes further by proposing a new autonomous body – the National Educational Technology Forum (NETF) – to facilitate open exchange on how technology can be used across school and higher education. The policy also recommends leveraging existing platforms like DIKSHA, SWAYAM, and Swayam Prabha to create virtual labs, ensuring students can access quality practical learning regardless of their physical location.

ePathshala: the digital classroom in your pocket 🔗

ePathshala is one of India’s most impactful digital education initiatives. Developed jointly by the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET) and NCERT, and launched in November 2015 under the Digital India initiative, ePathshala is a platform – available as a website and mobile app – that hosts all NCERT textbooks from Classes I to XII. The content is available in English, Hindi, and Urdu, and can be accessed on smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.

What makes ePathshala more than just a digital library is the nature of the content it offers. The platform was designed to disseminate a wide range of e-resources including textbooks, audio clips, video lessons, periodicals, and other digital materials – all under one roof. The mobile app also supports features like text-to-speech (TTS), bookmarking, highlighting, zooming, and making notes digitally, replicating many affordances of a physical book while adding layers of interactivity.

A particularly useful feature is the QR code scanner built into the app. Modern NCERT textbooks carry QR codes at the start of chapters; scanning one through the ePathshala app immediately loads related digital content – explainer videos, quizzes, or supplementary reading – connecting the physical textbook to a richer digital experience. Content on the platform is updated in real-time, so when NCERT revises an edition, the change is reflected immediately without waiting for new print runs.

The equity argument for ePathshala is compelling. The platform eliminates the cost barrier of physical textbooks entirely – a student in a remote village can access the same high-quality NCERT material as a student in a premium urban school. The ePathshala app was designed to contribute to SDG Goal 4 – equitable, quality, and inclusive education and lifelong learning for all – making its mission explicitly tied to global development objectives.

Vidya Vahini: laying the digital highway 🔗

Before apps and streaming platforms, there was the foundational challenge of simply getting computers and internet connectivity into schools – especially rural ones. This is where the Vidya Vahini program, launched in the early 2000s, played a critical and often underappreciated role. The name translates to “carrier of knowledge,” and that is precisely what it sought to be.

The government’s Vidya Vahini initiative aimed to provide “last mile” connectivity, bringing broadband internet and computer labs to senior secondary schools with a deliberate focus on rural and underserved areas. It was an infrastructure project at its core – built on the understanding that no digital revolution in education is possible without the digital infrastructure to support it. The program shifted the conversation in schools from treating computers as a subject to be studied to treating ICT as a tool for learning all other subjects.

Separately, the Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vahini program – developed by the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust and recognised by the UN’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs – represents a complementary, technology-powered pedagogical initiative. It focuses on empowering rural teachers with three key components: content, training, and teaching aids. All program content is mapped to national and state curricula from Grade 1 to Grade 9 across core subjects, and is accessible through a web portal, mobile apps, the DIKSHA platform, and even pen drives for areas with no connectivity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the program provided thousands of hours of online teacher training, enabling thousands of rural students to continue learning via smartphones while schools remained shut.

Swayam Prabha: bringing school to the television set 🔗

Not every student in India has access to a smartphone or reliable internet. Swayam Prabha addresses this directly. It is a group of DTH (Direct-to-Home) television channels that broadcast high-quality educational content on a 24/7 basis using the GSAT-15 satellite. The concept is elegantly simple: if you have a television and a set-top box, you have access to a school.

Under the PM eVidya programme, Swayam Prabha has expanded to include dedicated channels following a one-class, one-channel model for Classes 1 to 12, with content developed by NCERT, CBSE, KVS, and NIOS. The video content is produced in both Hindi and English, and these DTH channels can be accessed through DD Free Dish, Dish TV, and the Jio TV app, among others.

What makes Swayam Prabha particularly effective as a media tool is its design for accessibility. PM eVidya also provides education content through radio and community radio, with activity-based programming specifically designed for younger learners in Classes 1 to 5, and separate content for visually and hearing-impaired students. New content is added daily and repeated at multiple time slots, giving students flexibility in when they watch – a feature that traditional schooling lacks.

The satellite television approach directly bypasses the internet connectivity problem. Instead of requiring broadband access – which remains patchy in large parts of rural India – Swayam Prabha leverages an infrastructure that already exists in most Indian households: a television set and a basic DTH connection.

PM eVidya: unifying the digital education ecosystem 🔗

Each of the above initiatives functions most powerfully when coordinated. PM eVidya is the umbrella programme that brings them together. PM eVidya is a broad initiative that unites digital, online, and on-air education efforts to enable multi-mode access for approximately 250 million school-going children across India. It integrates internet-based platforms (DIKSHA, ePathshala, SWAYAM), television (Swayam Prabha DTH channels), radio and podcasts, all within one coordinated policy framework.

Crucially, PM eVidya also incorporates DIKSHA – the Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing – which serves as the national platform for school education across all states and union territories. DIKSHA allows states to host their own digitised textbooks and learning materials, meaning a student in Tamil Nadu or Assam can access state-board content alongside NCERT resources, all in their regional language. The platform also includes IIT Professor Assisted Learning (IITPal) – a series of lectures developed by IIT professors to help students prepare for competitive exams like JEE and NEET – extending the ecosystem beyond school education into higher education pathways.

The challenge of the digital divide 🔗

The initiatives described above are significant, but they do not tell the complete story. Recent data indicates that only 32.4% of India’s approximately 1.47 million schools have access to functional computers, and only 24.4% have smart classrooms. The gap is most pronounced in government and rural schools, where infrastructure lags far behind private urban institutions. Regional disparities remain stark – while states like Kerala and Delhi have near-universal school-level digital access, states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh continue to face significant hurdles.

The digital literacy divide between men and women is another structural constraint that affects the reach of these programmes. Women in rural areas have lower access to digital devices and are less likely to be digitally literate, which means that even well-designed platforms remain out of reach for a significant segment of the population.

Teacher readiness is a further concern. Research indicates that while teachers generally hold a positive view of technology’s potential, many express concern about their own lack of proficiency, insufficient resources, and poor infrastructure. Simply supplying schools with tablets or computers is not enough – teachers require structured, ongoing training to effectively integrate digital tools into their lesson planning and pedagogy. A good classroom teacher does not automatically become a good online educator without support.

The road ahead: personalisation, AI, and blended learning 🔗

Despite these challenges, the direction of travel is clear and irreversible. Technology has already begun to personalise learning in ways that a single teacher in a classroom of forty students simply cannot. Platforms with built-in assessment tools can identify a student’s weak areas and recommend specific content – shifting the model from one-size-fits-all instruction to differentiated, adaptive learning.

Emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) promise to take this further, enabling intelligent tutoring systems that respond in real time to how a student is performing. Virtual Reality (VR) opens the possibility of immersive learning – studying ancient civilisations by virtually walking through them, or conducting chemistry experiments in a simulated lab. States like Andhra Pradesh are already working on integrating AI into the computer science curriculum across Grades 7 to 12, and Odisha has introduced computational thinking as part of its 21st-century aspirational curriculum.

The future being built is one of blended learning – where digital tools complement, rather than replace, the human relationship between teacher and student. NEP 2020 explicitly recognises the importance of face-to-face, in-person learning while promoting effective models of blended education for different subjects and different contexts. The goal is not to digitise education for its own sake, but to use technology with intention – so that no child’s potential is limited by their postcode, their family’s income, or the quality of the nearest school.

What do you think? As India continues to expand its digital education infrastructure, does technology alone have the power to address deep-rooted inequalities in learning outcomes – or does the human element of teaching remain irreplaceable? And with initiatives like Swayam Prabha using satellite TV to reach students without internet, what other existing media channels could be better leveraged to close the educational gap in the country’s most underserved regions?

References

1. https://www.education.gov.in/shikshakparv/docs/NEP_2020_CIET_Behera.pdf
2. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/five-years-of-nep-2020-and-the-promise-of-edtech
3. https://shikshan.org/nep-2020/online-digital-education-technology/
4. https://epathshala.nic.in/
5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPathshala
6. https://epathshala.nic.in/pages.php?id=download-app&ln=en
7. https://www.ncertbooks.net/epathshala-ncerts-official-digital-learning-platform/
8. https://www.education.gov.in/en/ICT-Initiatives-e-Pathshala
9. https://sdgs.un.org/partnerships/sri-sathya-sai-vidya-vahini-program-improviing-teaching-methodologies-using-technology
10. https://www.swayamprabha.gov.in/about/pmevidya
11. https://teachersbadi.in/swayam-prabha-online-classes-schedule-under-pm-evidya-programme/
12. https://pmevidya.education.gov.in/
13. https://settingsinfotech.com/news/education/digital-education-initiatives-by-india-2025/
14. https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/digital-dreams-divided-realities-navigating-educational-access-in-india
15. https://sprf.in/digital-literacy-in-india-structural-constraints-and-the-nep-2020/
16. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9296115/