Page 40 - EducationWorld March 2022

Cover Story

teachers into consideration. The cur- deferment directives issued by state
riculums of our B.Ed colleges need governments during the lockdown,
to be overhauled in light of the les- even as these directives mandate pay-
sons learnt during the pandemic. We ment of salaries and online education,
also need special teacher courses on they are in deep distress. According
managing learning during emergen- to the Delhi-based National Indepen-
cies to ensure the mental health and dent Schools Alliance (NISA), which
well-being of children for understand- has a membership of 60,000 afford-
ing and addressing learning gaps and able private schools countrywide, over
designing synchronous and asynchro- 10,000 BPS have shut down across the
nous lessons,” says Maya Menon, country in 2020-22.
the celebrated founder-director of A great injustice meted out to the
The Teacher Foundation (estb.2002) country’s BPS is that despite numer-
which offers teacher training develop- ous appeals to the prime minister and
ment services to government and pri- finance minister, they have been ex-
vate schools (88,000 teachers trained cluded from the list of MSMEs (micro,
during the past 20 years). small and medium enterprises) eligi-
Menon: teacher training urgency ble for government credit guarantees
3 Provide loans/concessional and concessional loans during the
dow. However, with a mere 8-10 per- credit for budget private pandemic. This despite their provid-
cent of teachers passing TET annually, schools ing employment to 2 million teachers
the time window has been extended and schooling 60 million children.
indefinitely. ndia’s estimated 400,000 budget “The country’s budget private
Nevertheless, the successful switch Iprivate schools (BPS), which pro- schools are in dire straits from which
of a large number of private schools vide affordable (Rs.7,000-25,000 per they will take many years to recover.
to online learning and general accep- year) English-medium education to a NISA’s two major demands are: the
tance of ICT-enabled learning within staggering 60 million children, have Central government should create a
the teachers’ community and the gen- been hardest hit by the prolonged BPS Finance Corporation to advance
eral population during the pandemic, closure of schools. BPS are the sole loans at 5 percent to enable budget
provides a great opportunity to mass option of lower middle and working private schools to recover and improve
train teachers to use digitally-enabled class households fleeing dysfunctional quality of education, and secondly for
hybrid teaching-learning pedagogies government schools defined by poor the transport ministry to extend the
in classrooms. infrastructure, chronic teacher absen- fitness certificates of school buses by
Regrettably, there’s not even been teeism, vernacular-medium education two years,” says Kulbhushan Shar-
lip service from government and pol- and dismal learning outcomes. But be- ma, president of NISA.
icy formulators — the Union Budget cause of forced closure and unpaid tu-
2022-23 made no mention of teacher ition fees following contradictory fee Focus on foundational
development — to this vitally impor- Sharma: two major demands 4 learning
tant prerequisite for radically altered
post-pandemic classrooms. ollowing over a decade’s sustained
“The pandemic has highlighted the Fadvocacy by EducationWorld,
urgency of providing the country’s 9 the National Education Policy (NEP)
million school teachers sustained pro- 2020 has accorded high priority to
fessional training and emotional sup- early childhood care and education
port to enable them to deliver quality (ECCE) and reconfigured the coun-
education in their classrooms. My pre- try’s 10+2 education system into a
scription for the post-pandemic era is 5+3+3+4 preschool to class XII con-
for government and private schools tinuum.
to ensure that all teachers receive 50 However, during the 82-week
hours of professional development Covid pandemic-induced closure of
training annually as recommended by education institutions, pre-primary
NEP 2020. The training programme aka preschool children have suffered
should be designed after taking the most as parents pulled their infants
post-pandemic learning needs of out of school because of widespread
children and professional gaps of belief that they are highly vulnerable

40 EDUCATIONWORLD MARCH 2022