Education in developing countries with patchy Internet coverage is particularly hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic (see Nature 585, 482; 2020), compromising the future of students unable to access online teaching. A United Nations’ resolution emphasizes access to the Internet as a means of bridging the digital divide and facilitating the fundamental human right to education (see go.nature.com/2kcjp1p). In Pakistan, for example, nationwide Internet availability must be accelerated if the country’s potential is not to be irreversibly compromised.

Take the remote mountainous Gilgit-Baltistan region, which has a record of high literacy. This will plummet without proper Internet connectivity because local schools can no longer teach. University students returning home in lockdown cannot access their institutional online classes.

In December 2019, the government started the Digital Pakistan initiative (DPI) to prioritize “access and connectivity”. After a year, an unacceptable proportion of the population is still without electricity, let alone broadband. A further blow to Pakistan’s education and research has been dealt by the government’s continual axing of the country’s Higher Education Commission (HEC) budget.

As a researcher from Pakistan, I urge the government and the leadership of the DPI and the HEC to speed up plans to rectify this digital divide so that education can flourish again (see also Nature 582, 162–164; 2020).