The State of Israel has not been spared the severe effects of the coronavirus. Not surprisingly, this crisis has spotlighted the fragility of the country’s human and social fabric. As always, the first to pay the price and feel the negative effects are those in the social and geographic periphery.
Alongside humanity’s universal mission to find a cure or vaccine for the virus, Israel, which is part of these global efforts, must also set another overarching goal that is no less important: to narrow the social gaps.
The corona crisis befell us unexpectedly but the social gaps between the various groups in Israeli society are not new. Now these gaps may worsen and grow to dimensions the country has never known. After many years of neglect, peripheral areas are on the verge of erupting, volcanoes with boiling lava, and this will be the real epidemic – the social epidemic. The corona crisis exposed the unhealthy state of Israeli society and further underscored the gaps between the country’s center and its periphery.
When the education system closed, talk abounded about online learning. As in the primary and secondary education system, at the universities and colleges our students continue to study, and faculty members continue to teach, albeit remotely. Technology may be able to bridge this need, but can it also bridge the social gaps?
How are the less-fortunate faring at this time? We must now add the digital gap to the economic and infrastructure gaps. In 21st-century Israel, digital gaps can also determine an individual’s future, and as members of an enlightened society, we must not leave the weak behind.
A computer is now a basic consumer need. Home Internet access is also a basic consumer need. What’s more, one computer is not enough for a household, all the more so in large families. The digital divide and lack of financial resources can sometimes determine the future of a child from a family without means, destroying his or her dreams of a better future.
Many will survive the health crisis, but not everyone will survive the economic crisis. This crisis is more severe in the social and economic periphery, and the gaps are immediately apparent in education and academia, in the ability to maintain a study routine and acquire the keys to success and a fulfilling future.
Distributing computers to pupils will help advance digital literacy, and place the educational system at the forefront of computer-based pedagogy. By doing so, we will increase the prospects for a better future for additional groups in society and uplift education. We can ensure that academia will also be accessible to the boy from the peripheral town of Yeroham, and to the girl from the peripheral Bedouin town of Rahat, when they come of age.
At a time when economic and social gaps and the standard of living are central topics of discourse, narrowing gaps in general, and technological gaps in particular, should be goals on the government’s agenda.
As an aside, I would like to note that over the years, 65% of students at Shamoon College of Engineering, the institution that I head, were first-generation college students. In other words, they are the first members of their families to pursue an undergraduate degree and the first to break through the glass ceiling.
Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and plan for the day after the corona crisis. We must understand that maintaining a cohesive society, narrowing gaps and pursuing social equality are the cornerstones of a nation’s resilience.
In the face of the myriad viruses in the air, narrowing the gaps is the real vaccine Israeli society needs.
The writer is president of Shamoon College of Engineering.