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Children of pandemic shuttered Kolkata primary school: malnutrition damage danger
over with 200 million children enrolled in anganwadis and that children not only stop learning new things, they also
government primary schools deprived of nutrition and forget some of what they have learned,” says the report (see
mid-day meals, pervasive child malnutrition poses danger p.56).
of brain damage and stunting to millions of children. Now In India, apart from the 2,500-3,000 primary-secondary
as schools and colleges are cautiously reopening for senior schools ranked in the EducationWorld India School Rank-
school students, educators are confronted with challenges ings 2020-21 (see www.educationworld.in), most of whom
of repairing the academic, emotional and nutrition damage have switched to online teaching-learning during the past
suffered by tens of millions of children across the country. six-nine months, the overwhelming majority of 1.2 million
In the pages following, we assess the cost of the pandem- government and 400,000 private budget schools lack the
ic to Indian education under the heads of learning, health financial and digital resources to provide e-learning to chil-
and nutrition, economic and mental-emotional damage. dren.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020
Academic learning loss of the highly-respected education NGO Pratham Education
Though past precedents have established beyond doubt that Foundation (estb.1994) published last October, says a mere
prolonged school closures result in critical learning loss, 11 percent of students enrolled in private and government
especially among poor and disadvantaged children, almost schools countrywide are logging into online classes and 21.5
a year after all education institutions were ordered to shut percent are accessing one-way video recorded classes. The
down in mid-March 2020 to curb the spread of the pan- report adds that although considerable digital content is be-
demic, credible data is emerging of the extent of damage. ing generated and transmitted to help children to continue
The World Bank’s Beaten or Broken? Informality learning, “there is limited evidence on the extent to which
and COVID-19 in South Asia report of October last year this content is reaching children; whether they are engaging
estimates “the learning loss for the region is 0.5 years of with it; and the impact it is having on their participation
learning-adjusted years of schooling (LAYS), falling from and learning”.
6.5 LAYS to 6.0”. (LAYS calculus combines quantity (years In this context, it’s pertinent to note that Pratham’s
of schooling) and quality (how much children have learned annual ASER surveys have been warning about declining
in several grades) into a single summary measure of human learning outcomes in rural primary education for almost
capital development). “Being out of school for long means two decades. For instance, ASER 2018 indicates that the

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