Page 26 - Education World Dec 2021

Education News

With in-class teaching-learning suspended since THEY SAID IT
March 2020, government school students in small towns
and remote rural belts have been totally deprived of on- “Today, as we mark 75 years of the historic sit-
line learning because of lack of Internet connectivity and ting of our Constituent Assembly, I would urge
digital devices. These children are in grave danger of hav- my young friends to know more about this
ing forgotten what they had learnt 20 months ago when august gathering’s proceedings and about the
they last attended in-person classes. In rural Bengal in
particular, getting working children back into classrooms eminent stalwarts who were a part of it.”
is becoming a big challenge. The education ministry and Prime minister Narendra Modi (Money Control,
local government officials have asked teachers to persuade December 9)
parents to send children back to school.
M
Meanwhile, even as chief minister a m a ta B a n e rj e e “e struggle is not over yet. Getting remu-
is focused on stitching a national anti-BJP alliance for the nerative MSP for agricultural produce, end-
critically important Uttar Pradesh assembly election early ing the controversial Electricity Amendment
next year and General Election 2024, educationists and Act, reducing tax burden on everything used
education ministry officials are becoming aware of the for farming, reducing the unexpected hike in
enormity of children’s — especially primary school chil- diesel prices and the debt burden are serious
dren’s — learning loss during the world’s most prolonged issues.”
schools lockdown. Feeble attempts are being made to as- Rahul Gandhi after farmers called off their year-long
sess the learning loss protest (Hindustan Times, November 23)
of youngest children
and to frame “a com- “Farm Laws Repeal Bill 2021, farm laws
prehensive remedial passed without discussion. Repealed without
learning” syllabus. discussion. Maybe government feels discus-
“Each and every
student will be eval- sion should be outside Parliament! Parliament
uated. They will be they think is meant to pass laws not discuss
asked to do certain laws! New vision, Naya Bharat!”
academic activities Kapil Sibal, former Union minister on repeal of the farm
only if they remem- laws by the BJP government (Twitter, November 30)
ber what they had Out-of-school children in Kolkata
been taught in the “AFSPA is not just a law. It creates a whole
previous class. We can’t resume classes without address- culture. ink of what it would be like to live
ing learning loss,” A v e e k M a j u m da r, chairman of the under a legal regime, where the state is given
West Bengal Syllabus Committee, had told Education- such wide powers. e existence of those
World in September. powers is an affront, and they create a culture
With the state’s ruling Trinamool Congress Party and of fear, interdiction, humiliation and violence..”
chief minister Banerjee exhibiting no urgency to restart Pratap Bhanu Mehta, public intellectual, on why the
preschool and primary classes, there’s growing indigna- Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) should
tion within academia and West Bengal’s bhadralok (re- be repealed after the Indian Army’s massacre of 14
fined middle class). civilians in Nagaland (The Indian Express, December
Comments a y a ti G u p ta , a former English professor 10)
J
at West Bengal State University and visiting faculty at Ad-
amas University, Kolkata: “The prolonged schools closure “Devices such as the smartphone induce
has resulted in irreparable learning loss for primary and small children into a seductive bond that may
pre-primary children and also children with special needs, not be easy to shake off. Restoring children’s
for whom one-on-one interaction is critically important. innate desire to relate to the world physically
Even though the ground reality was challenging because and socially surrounding them will constitute
of the pandemic, the state government clearly didn’t do
enough to open schools earlier. It should reopen schools a major step towards educational recovery.
from pre-primary onwards without delay as several other is will demand de-addiction from digital
states of the Indian Union have done.” instruments.”
But evidently chief minister Mamata Banerjee has Prof. Krishna Kumar, former director of NCET, in an
other priorities. essay titled ‘Children and schooling in the post-
Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata) Covid-19 era’ (The Hindu, December 10)

26 EDUCATIONWORLD DECEMBER 2021