Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc in its past outings the world over, and its aftereffects are being felt even to this day. If it already hadn’t done enough, the pandemic has been transforming society in profound ways, often exacerbating social and economic inequalities in its wake.
In an effort to curb its spread in the first wave, governments around the world moved to suspend face-to-face teaching in schools, affecting some 95% of the world’s student population—the largest disruption to education in history. Home of the youngest population in the world, India was naturally the most affected. After the first wave, as the joy of school reopening was just settling in with the students, the second wave of Covid-19 brought about a closure again. The same happened in the third wave, impacting the learning skills as well as mental well-being of children.
The biggest casualty of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic was among children who were just beginning to read and count and the ramifications of the loss of guidance during their formative years will become apparent when these children reach higher classes. According to the latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), the basic reading ability of school students across all classes has dropped to pre-2012 levels while basic maths skills have declined to 2018 levels. The drops are visible in government as well as private schools in most states and for both boys and girls. The biggest casualty of the school closures was among children who were just beginning to read and count.
The ramifications of the loss of guidance during the formative years will become apparent in the next few years when these children reach higher classes. Online schooling also largely left out children with disabilities or learning difficulties. The UNICEF India believes that India might be risking a lost generation of children who may never return to school. The impact on girls is disproportionately worse.
In 2020-21, there was an assumption schooling could be conducted online during lockdowns but for a majority of schoolchildren in India, there was almost no access to schools for months. The availability of network, bandwidth or signal was not the only factor behind low traction for online schooling. Several socio-cultural factors played out at the same time. Many children had lost parents to COVID-19 while others had to take up jobs to support their families as the parents had lost their livelihoods. These children were forced out of schools and may never return to a formal education. Despite the lessons from 2020-21, India is no better prepared for the next pandemic. Policy needs to work towards ‘digital welfarism’ which improves quality of access to the extent of making it a basic necessity and improving human capabilities to use digital platforms.
There have been online education success stories such as supplemental ed-tech platforms. But these platforms cost money and not all households could afford the fees. One thing is clear, online education can never adequately replace traditional schooling.
