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Online education can lead to inequality stemming from technical capabilities, says expert

The pundit cited multi-child families with small apartments as an example

MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. Online learning makes education more accessible, but it can also lead to greater inequalities due to different technical capabilities in families, Rector of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) Vladimir Mau told TASS ahead of the Gaidar Forum.

On the one hand, the online learning format leads to higher equality, but at the same time brings difficulties in terms of technical resources. "The online [mode] potentially enhances equality, because, in principle, you may not go anywhere, but study. But at the same time, it adds to the element of inequality, because everyone has different living conditions, different conditions of technology availability. For families whose children go to school, this problem is especially acute: if you have several children in a family and a small apartment, how will they all be studying online? That is, by opening a new opportunity, it creates serious new problems, and it seems to me that the state should already be looking for answers," he said.