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Out-of-school children: most prolonged education institutions lockdown worldwide

ered by untrained teachers on television screens, children learning outcomes of millions of children. School education
are learning enough to get by. The dominant sentiment is should have been designated a frontline activity and decen-
that political risk of children contracting the virus is too tralised with committees of local government officials, prin-
high and could cost ruling parties votes in future elections. cipals and parents being empowered to reopen schools with
Warnings by Unesco, Unicef and other reports that children adequate safety protocols. The Central government should
trailing behind by a year or more in primary education are immediately issue guidelines to this effect. Even before the
unlikely to recover lost ground and will suffer 10-15 percent pandemic, ASER surveys indicated that more than 50 per-
income loss in adulthood, don’t seem to bother politicians cent of classes V-VII children in rural schools couldn’t read
or educrats. They have kept schools shut with scant respect and comprehend class II-III textbooks or solve age-appro-
for the advice of epidemiologists and academics who ad- priate math sums. When formal in-person classes resume,
vocate cautious reopening of schools to protect the future an additional 30-40 percent will have fallen behind. This
careers and livelihoods of children. will make things very difficult for teachers when in-person
According to the Annual Status of Education Report classes resume,” warns Kavita Anand, founder-director
(October 2020) of the nationally respected Pratham Edu- of Adhyayan Quality Education Services Ltd (estb.2011),
cation Foundation, only one-third of India’s 260 million a consultancy that has aided and advised 400 schools to
school children are availing online education, of whom a improve leadership and institutional governance.
mere 11 percent in private and government schools were However, the silver lining of the grim Covid tsunami
attending online classes (in October 2020) with 21.5 per- that has devastated industry, trade and the economy of the
cent learning through videos and recorded lessons. A mere country, is that a small minority of education leaders have
8.1 percent of children in rural government schools were succeeded in devising creative responses to the challenges
attending online classes. Eight months on after the devas- posed by the pandemic which has contracted the nation’s
tating second wave of the pandemic (March-April), the data GDP by an unprecedented 8 percent in fiscal 2020-21.
is certain to be more depressing. Inevitably, the best response to the education disrup-
“India’s 57-week closure of all education institutions and tion caused by the Covid crisis has come from the coun-
schools in particular, is likely to prove disastrous for the try’s private institutions that are relatively well-funded and

AUGUST 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 39