Page 36 - EducationWorld Feb 2021 Low

Cover Story

PANDEMIC THUNDERBOLT ENDANGERS

EARLY YEARS EDUCATION

When the cost of the pandemic damage inflicted upon the country’s
education sector is assessed after the polity limps back to normalcy,
it’s certain to be very heavy. Especially in the nascent early childhood
care and education sector

Dilip Thakore

A CCORDING TO MOST INDICATORS, heading towards a V-shaped recovery with the recently re-

the worst of the Coronavirus pan-
leased Economic Survey 2020-21 forecasting double digit
demic surge which prompted the
economic growth in fiscal 2021-22.
However in the euphoria of the bounce back from the
Central government to promulgate
deadliest pandemic to have swept the subcontinent in the
the comprehensive national lock-
down of industry and business from
of the country’s 1.60 million primary-secondary schools,
March 25 last year, has subsided.
41,901 junior and undergrad colleges and 1,028 universities
Factories and large and small in- past century, it is pertinent to note that the vast majority
dustrial units are humming again and production volumes with an aggregate enrolment of 300 million children and
are almost back to pre-Covid levels, with business and trade youth are still shuttered. Only a few schools and higher edu-
having substantially resumed. cation institutions have reopened their campuses for senior
Roads in the country’s ill-planned cities are jammed and students to attend classes, libraries and laboratories at their
public transport is packed as usual, even as the Sensex, the option and with express parental consent. When the cost of
bellwether of the National Stock Exchange, has hit an all- the structural damage inflicted upon the country’s already
time high of 50,000. With doctors and nurses in hospitals struggling education sector by this lethal virus is assessed
and primary health centres across the country administer- after the battered polity limps back to normalcy, it is certain
ing anti-Covid vaccine jabs, the dormant energy of citizens to be very heavy. According to a Unesco report (December
seems to have been aroused. Despite the Reserve Bank’s 7, 2020), 320 million children worldwide were out of school
prediction that national GDP will contract by 7.7 percent on December 1, an increase of nearly 90 million from 232
in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021, the economy is million a month earlier.

36 EDUCATIONWORLD FEBRUARY 2021