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A damning report by the British newspaper, The Guardian, reveals that students belonging to the lower-income communities in Pakistan and the far-flung areas can no longer afford education due to the non-availability of the Internet and transition to distance learning.
Marvi Soomro, the founder of the education charity IEI Pakistan, says that regions like Gilgit-Baltistan have been completely isolated due to lack of technology access since families can no longer earn through tourism to sell livestock to make ends meet.
Seema Aziz, the founder of Care Foundation, showed concern that attendance will dwindle further as the lack of internet outside big cities makes distance learning next to impossible. “We tried to start online learning on smartphones in a few of our schools, but there’s no mobile signals or internet access for many of our students at home.”, she says.
