Page 39 - EW April 2021

India’s diverse private schools provide quality education to 47.5 percent of school-going children

are being deprived of their daily free-of-charge mid-day undergrad colleges or 1,008 universities (some of them of
meal. 150 years vintage) is ranked among the global Top 200 of
Curiously while entire divisions of economists, business QS and Times Higher Education, the well-respected Lon-
analysts and media pundits have devised detailed strategies don-based varsity rating agencies.
to haul industry, business and the economy back on the India’s estimated 200 million children in the age group
rails, there is helpless inertia in academia about ideating 0-8 have been especially hard-hit by the prolonged closure
ways and means to repair the huge loss of learning suffered of pre-primary and primary schools for over a year. Accord-
by the world’s largest child and youth population. This ed- ing to a valuable but disturbing field research study titled
ucation-focused publication which has repeatedly warned Loss of Learning During the Pandemic published by the
about the silent crisis brewing in Indian education (see EW Bengaluru-based Azim Premji University (APU, estb.2010),
January-March cover stories on www.educationworld.in) “overall loss of learning — loss (regression or forgetting)
is a lonely voice in the wilderness, ignored not only by un- of what children had learnt in the previous class as well as
heeding governments at the Centre and states, but also by what they did not get an opportunity to learn in the present
the academy, parents and educators communities. class — is going to lead to a cumulative loss over the years,
The dimensions of this brewing crisis in Indian educa- impacting not only the academic performance of children
tion are mountainous. Even before the outbreak of the pan- in their school years but also their adult lives”. To conduct
demic and consequential national lockdown of all education the study, APU field researchers tested 16,067 classes II-VI
institutions countrywide, learning outcomes in Indian edu- children of 1,137 public (government) schools in 44 districts
cation across the spectrum were rock-bottom. of five states, to assess four capabilities in language learning
For more than a decade the authoritative Annual Sta- and elementary maths.
tus of Education Report (ASER) of the Pratham Education The ‘key findings’ of this valuable study are -- or should
Foundation has been warning that over half of class V chil- be — alarming. “92 percent of children on average have lost
dren in rural — especially government — primaries can’t at least one specific language ability (describing a picture
read class II textbooks, or do simple division and multipli- or experiences orally; reading familiar words; reading with
cation sums. In higher education not one of India’s 39,931 comprehension; writing simple sentences based on a pic-

APRIL 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 41