Page 19 - EW JAN 2022

mas and New Year celebrations huge ing in low-end jobs are in grave danger education ministry announced set-
crowds were permitted to congregate. of forgetting what they had learned. ting up an expert committee to de-
Educationists trace the rise in Covid “The prolonged lockdown of sign bridge courses for classes I-VIII
positive cases to pandemic protocols schools is gross violation of the Right to make up for lost learning when
being thrown to the winds during of Children to Free & Compulsory schools reopen. Moreover, with the
these festive months. And while malls, Education (RTE) Act, 2009, which Central government directing that ad-
shops, public transport are permitted made free and compulsory elementary olescents in the 15-18 years age group
to function with 50 percent capacity, education a fundamental right of all should be vaccinated from January 3,
education institutions have been or- children. Several authoritative studies chief minister Mamata Banerjee has
dered to completely shut down. in India and abroad have concluded set the health ministry an ambitious
The consequences of this reckless that children are at least risk of hospi- target of vaxxing 4.8 million teens
attitude towards children’s education talisation because of Covid infection. within 30 days.
are beginning to manifest. Although The West Bengal government should However, with reports of massive
on-campus classes for higher second- immediately order re-opening of all dropouts, after schools for class IX-
ary (classes IX-XII) and college and education institutions from preschool XII were reopened on November 16,
university students were permitted to onwards with batches attending on al- there is growing indignation within
resume on November 16, attendance ternate days or three times per week, West Bengal’s academia and bhadral-
is thin. Sentient educationists attri- in line with rules applicable to shop- ok (refined middle class) about the
bute this to the unprecedented lock- ping malls, retail stores, restaurants TMC’s reckless closure of education
down of schools for 73 weeks. A large etc. Risks to children’s health must be institutions without due application of
number of the state’s 24 million chil- balanced against their suffering irre- mind. Curiously, West Bengal’s TMC
dren unable to access the Internet and trievable learning loss and psychologi- government seems unaware that be-
digital devices and consequently to- cal damage,” says Shruti Goswami, tween reopening and locking down
tally deprived of online learning, have assistant professor at Kolkata’s high- schools there are acceptable half-way
dropped out of the education system. ranked St. Xavier’s College. solutions.
And those who haven’t started work- Meanwhile on December 13, the Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)

JANUARY 2022 EDUCATIONWORLD 19