Back to school

With the third wave proving to be infectious but mild, some States have rightly decided to fully open schools and colleges, while others, oddly enough, remain undecided. Tamil Nadu and Telangana have mandated opening of all schools and colleges from next month, while Karnataka’s announcement pertains to schools alone. Rajasthan and Haryana will open higher school classes, while Maharashtra is opening schools in Mumbai and Pune. But West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh (where election crowds are kosher) and Delhi remain closed for now. The ideal way to go is for schools and colleges (the latter opening for children who are fully vaccinated) to open fully with some Covid protocols in place, which can be relaxed as the pandemic retreats. Any further delay in opening institutions cannot be justified at a time when the pandemic has ceased to be a major threat to health; children are neither a huge threat to the rest of the population, and nor are they a vulnerable group. They have been locked out for too long. What has strengthened the case for opening is that 75 per cent of the eligible adult population is fully vaccinated, with adolescents lining up for their jabs. State governments, such as Delhi, have been far more keen to open up shopping complexes and cinema halls than schools and colleges. As a result, India has earned the dubious distinction of keeping its educational institutions closed for longer periods than most countries.

There has been no official acknowledgment of the damaging impact of this closure on 40 crore children and adolescents. Online education has led to poor learning outcomes, with the under-privileged being out of it altogether for lack of digital access and the rest being forced to put up with incomprehensible teaching sessions. Yet, no government, Centre or State, has spoken about this epidemic of de-learning that now needs to be addressed on a war footing, particularly among the poor. A survey by NCERT has claimed that 70 per cent of the students, teachers and parents find online learning “joyful and satisfactory”. This cannot be a starting point, as institutions reopen after two years. It may not be a bad idea to drop an academic year. This ‘loss’ should be seen against the larger prospect of students failing to cope later and dropping out. Children who have retreated into child labour need to be weaned back into schools. A SCHOOL survey conducted last August among 1,400 children between grades 1 and 8 (largely from rural, under-privileged backgrounds) across the country reveals that only 8 per cent of rural children and 24 per cent of urban children are studying online regularly. Access to resources has widened the learning gap between the poor and the rich, limiting the former’s prospects.

The Centre and States should work out out-of-the-box ways to bridge the learning gap in absolute and relative terms. The Budget must take the education crisis seriously. Sadly, this finds no mention in campaign speeches, where political parties are sparring over jobs without sparing a thought for a broken, post-Covid education system.

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