Page 56 - EW FEB 2022

Special Report

opment. Moreover, by sporadically on-campus classes subject to mainte-
opening up campuses for class X and nance of safety protocols.
XII students, government is sending On January 17, the Parents As-
out the message that board exams are sociation of Mumbai wrote to chief
important, not learning. India is expe- minister Uddhav Thackeray demand-
riencing a grave education emergency. ing “urgent opening of schools with
State governments need to resist the realistic SOPs”. “Children of Maha-
temptation of shutting schools at the rashtra have suffered the most with
slightest surge in Covid positive cases. schools being closed for 700 days and
Schools should be declared an essen- counting. While education should be
tial service, ensuring uninterrupted an essential service like it is in other
education. It’s a national priority,” countries around the world, it has
says Sumeet Mehta, co-founder been most distressing for citizens to
and CEO of Leadership Boulevard Pvt. see no importance given for education
Ltd (LBL, estb.2012), a Mumbai-based and children in Mumbai and Maha-
company that offers its LEAD schools rashtra… Moreover, we also want to
improvement package to 3,000 part- know why bars, restaurants, malls, etc
ner schools across the country. Mehta: exaggerated phobia are all allowed to open while schools
T HE USP (UNIQUE SALES responsive to their exaggerated pan- consider our request and prevent us
are not? We urgently request you to
from becoming the laughing stock of
proposition) of LBL is
that unlike most edtech
thing but schools is open,” says the
companies that target demic phobia. In a democracy, the the country and world where every-
government’s job is to keep all schools
students for improved academic out- open and leave the choice of sending association’s letter.
comes, its LEAD programme is an children to school to parents,” advises Clearly, governments are more sen-
institutional upgradation package for Mehta. sitive to middle class demand. A week
whole school improvement. This USP Mehta’s contention that there is later on January 24, Maharashtra’s
has impressed investors in education. a class divide on the issue of school ruling MVA coalition government or-
In December, LEAD became the sixth reopening is supported by ‘School dered all schools statewide to restart
edtech company to enter India’s uni- Children’s Online and Offline Learn- pre-primary to class XII classes. On
corn club after it raised $100 million ing (SCHOOL),’ a survey conducted January 22, 22 state chapters of the
from investors, doubling its valuation by highly respected sociologist Jean Private Schools and Children’s Wel-
to $1.1 billion in less than a year. Dreze and development economist fare Association (PSCWA) wrote to
Mehta, whose clientele mainly Reetika Khera. According to the study prime minister Narendra Modi and
comprises affordable/budget private released last September, 97 percent state chief ministers to reopen schools
schools — the sole alternative of low- of households in rural India want immediately.
income households fleeing dysfunc- schools to reopen as soon as possible. In its common letter to the prime
tional government schools — is indig- The enormity of the academic, minister, PSCWA cited a statement
nant that the resumption of normative socialisation and emotional loss that of World Bank Global Education Di-
schooling debate has been hijacked children have suffered during the rector Jaime Saavedra who opines
by “privileged parents who have the most prolonged schools lockdown “there is no justification now for
recourse of online education”. “The worldwide, is also beginning to dawn keeping schools closed in view of the
overwhelming majority of children on India’s urban middle class. Urban pandemic”. “During 2020, we were
are in government and budget private parents, who were hitherto in the van- navigating in a sea of ignorance. We
schools. Their parents want schools to guard of citizens demanding schools just didn’t know what is the best way
reopen because they are well-aware closure for child health and safety rea- of combating the pandemic and the
that their children will be safer in sons during the first and second waves immediate reaction of most countries
school than in cramped homes and of the pandemic, are doing serious re- in the world was ‘let’s close schools’.
neighbourhoods, and more so because thinking. Against the new backdrop of Time has passed since then and with
they have very limited access to digital 70 percent of adult citizens including evidence coming in from late 2020
devices and online education in their teachers double jabbed, and emerging and 2021, we have had several waves
homes. But because the public debate evidence that the new Omicron vari- and there are several countries which
especially on social media is controlled ant of the Coronavirus is relatively have opened schools. We have been
by upper class parents with great faith benign, there’s a rising groundswell of able to see if schools opening have
in online education, governments are opinion in favour of schools resuming had an impact in the transmission of

56 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2022