Edtech and e-learning are not a silver bullet. They are just one piece of a complex and many-layered puzzle that we need to solve to deliver education to the masses.
Md. Zarif Rahman
This article was originally published in Counterpoint on May 25, 2025
Imagine handing a laptop loaded with ChatGPT to a teenager from a tea garden in Moulvibazar or the remote hills of Rangamati, and asking them to write a short report or analyze a dataset.
Now, give the same task and device to their urban counterpart in Dhaka — someone raised in a household with broadband, smart devices, and digitally fluent family members.
Technically, both have “access,” but who is more likely to succeed?
The answer lies not in intelligence or intent, but in exposure, environment, digital confidence, and the quiet scaffolding of privilege.
Now consider an online exam where all students are required to keep their cameras on.
One logs in from a 3,000-square-foot apartment, complete with high-speed internet and a private study room. Another tries to connect from a cramped two-room home shared with six others, where privacy is a distant dream. That student may choose to keep the camera off — not due to disengagement, but because their surroundings deny them dignified visibility. Yet the system may still penalize them.
This is the complex, evolving face of the digital divide. Once defined merely by access to the internet or devices, it now runs deeper — encompassing how technology is used, in what environment, and to what end.
In Bangladesh, much of the public discourse on digital transformation remains locked within an urban policy bubble. Yes, internet
penetration is growing and smartphones are more common — but for children in rural villages, urban slums, and marginalized communities, digital access remains a fragile privilege, not a basic right.
And when access does exist, without proper guidance or structured support, it often leads to misuse or shallow engagement rather than true empowerment.
In today’s world, digital access is only the beginning. What truly matters is who gets to grow, learn, and lead through that access — and who gets left behind despite having it.
What do Global Insights tell us?
Over the past two decades, the global understanding of digital inequality has expanded beyond the narrow question of who has internet or a device. While the digital divide was once seen primarily as a matter of access, researchers now emphasize that access alone is not enough to guarantee digital inclusion.
Sociologist Jan van Dijk offers a more nuanced framework by distinguishing three layers of digital inequality. The first concerns disparities in access to technology – such as devices, connectivity, and electricity. The second relates to differences in digital skills and literacy, and in users’ ability to engage meaningfully with technology. The third captures the unequal social and economic outcomes that emerge from digital exclusion, including disparities in education, employment, civic participation, and long-term mobility.
This layered understanding is essential because even when physical access is achieved, meaningful use is often determined by social context. Students from marginalized communities, particularly those with limited exposure or guidance at home, frequently lack the skills and confidence needed to benefit from digital tools.
A 2024 study by Katrina Liu, Rebecca Tschinkel, and Richard Miller helps illustrate these dynamics through data from the United States. The researchers found that even in schools where laptops and internet access were distributed equally, the learning outcomes were not. Students from wealthier families used technology for advanced activities like coding, statistical analysis, problem-solving, and research. Meanwhile, their lower-income peers were typically confined to repetitive drills or individualized instruction with minimal depth.
The COVID-19 pandemic only deepened these disparities. Many students of colour were assigned review material instead of new lessons, while others faced punitive digital practices. Children were removed from virtual classrooms due to unstable internet, failure to wear uniforms, or even the presence of toy guns caught by their webcams.
These incidents underscore how educational technology, when implemented without sensitivity to students’ social realities, can reinforce exclusion and magnify pre-existing institutional biases.
As education researcher Justin Reich observed, technology adoption does not automatically equalize opportunity — it can, in fact, accelerate inequalities within individual schools. For Bangladesh, the takeaway is clear. While increasing digital access is a necessary step, it is far from sufficient. Without thoughtful design, inclusive pedagogy, and institutional safeguards that consider the social, cultural, and economic contexts of learners, digital tools may replicate the very hierarchies they aim to disrupt.
What Does the Reality in Bangladesh Look Like?
To understand the scenario in Bangladesh, one of the biggest problems is the lack of proper academic and/or field-level work exploring the different dimensions of the digital divide. Most existing studies narrowly focus on physical access — whether students have devices or internet.
Likewise, national policies often push surface-level solutions, such as digitizing classrooms or installing multimedia devices. While these steps may create the appearance of progress, they frequently overlook the deeper layers of inequality — those tied to usage, impact, and structural support.
Fortunately, some recent research on education resilience provides insights that help illuminate this more complex picture. For example, a recent national study by the Institute of Informatics and Development (IID), surveying 3,258 households across 10 districts, lays bare these intersecting inequalities — digital, educational, and economic.
One of the most striking findings relates to the rising cost of education. Over a six- month period (October 2022 – March 2023), 83% of parents reported increased expenses — from school uniforms and transportation to coaching fees and internet bills.
These aren’t just budget concerns; they reflect a growing affordability divide that directly affects a family’s ability to keep their children connected to education, particularly in digital forms.
For many households, paying for a monthly internet pack competes with food or rent. This financial strain becomes a gatekeeper to digital participation and reveals how first-level digital inequality – access is deeply shaped by economic realities.
But having a device or internet connection doesn’t guarantee meaningful use. That’s where the second layer of the divide emerges. IID’s data shows that only 16.5% of households had internet access and just 2.7% had a laptop. Smartphone ownership was more common, but insufficient for complex learning tasks.
Notably, nearly one in ten households had no digital device at all.
These disparities widen with income: only 3% of low-income families owned a laptop compared to 14% among wealthier ones. Such gaps show that digital access may be growing, but it is neither equitable nor adequate for educational continuity or advancement.
Even more concerning is what the study reveals about the usage and support environment. Awareness of government education initiatives, such as online classes or TV-based learning during the pandemic, was significantly lower among less-educated households.
Only one-third of parents with no formal education were aware of these programs — compared to over two-thirds among those with an honours degree. And where awareness exists, support is often lacking. In lower-educated households, 91% of children study on their own, without any guidance.
By contrast, in households with postgraduate degrees, students are far more likely to receive help from a parent or tutor. This mentorship or the lack of it shapes whether a child uses technology to explore, create, and learn, or simply to click through assignments in isolation.
Bangladesh’s digital divide cannot be bridged by simply distributing devices or expanding bandwidth. Without addressing affordability, household capacity, and the critical role of learning support, such efforts risk reinforcing the very exclusions they seek to fix.
Initiatives like Starlink or smart classrooms may look promising, but without inclusive planning and mentoring, they risk benefiting only the already advantaged. A truly equitable digital future must go beyond access, tackling how technology is use and who actually gains from it, otherwise, the most marginalized will continue to be left behind, silently and systematically.
New Challenges on the Horizon: The Uneven Impact of AI
As Bangladesh navigates its digital transformation, the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence adds another layer of complexity. Tools like ChatGPT are making their way into classrooms, but their use raises critical questions about ethics, learning, and equity.
Without regulation or guidance, premature exposure to AI risks misinformation (so-called “AI hallucination”), encourages academic shortcuts, and undermines cognitive development.
When students depend on AI-generated content without understanding the process behind it, learning turns passive, and critical thinking takes a backseat.
In such a landscape, the role of teachers, mentors, and structured learning becomes even more vital. Ensuring digital equity now also means building AI literacy, fostering responsible use, and creating support systems for those most vulnerable to misuse.
Otherwise, AI may not bridge learning gaps — it may deepen them.
Toward a More Inclusive Path: Why Blended Learning Matters
All of this underscores the urgent need for a blended approach to education. According to IID’s national study, during COVID-19 school closures, home assignments had the highest student participation rate (54%), far surpassing online classes (18%) and television-based lessons.
This reinforces a vital insight: in communities with limited digital infrastructure, traditional pen-and-paper methods still work — and often work best.
In a country as socio-economically diverse as Bangladesh, relying solely on digital solutions risks reinforcing the very exclusions we aim to overcome. A hybrid model that combines offline materials, community-based instruction, and thoughtfully integrated digital tools could offer a more equitable and realistic way forward.
Digital access, on its own, is not a silver bullet. In fact, without attention to context, it can deepen existing inequalities. True learning depends not only on devices or connectivity, but on a broader ecosystem — economic security, parental education, cultural attitudes,
and institutional capacity. In the age of AI, learning must remain a guided, ethical, and reflective process.
What Bangladesh needs now is more than infrastructure — it needs research that listens to local realities, policies that prioritize the marginalized, and programs built from the ground up. Only then can we imagine a digital future that is not just accessible — but truly
inclusive and just.
Md. Zarif Rahman is a Research Associate at the Institute of Informatics and Development (IID), where he works in the Education Unit.