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Expert Comment

Repair & recovery

after Covid

KRISHNA KUMAR

NDIA’S EDUCATIONAL RECOVERY FROM THE Our education institutions will require
Covid-19 pandemic will require considerable imagina-
tion, planning and patience. These resources have been financial boosting and credible leader-
Iin short supply over the past decade or so. Few state ship to create and sustain a climate for
governments have sufficient resources to build the institu-
tional infrastructure and expertise required for dealing with institutional recovery without false pride
crises. And as for patience, neither the Central nor state over trivial achievements
governments show any inclination to appreciate initiatives
taken by an earlier regime. Typically, when a new political
dispensation takes over, it has little interest in sustaining budget private schools to function. In the post-Covid era,
efforts invested by its predecessor. The Covid crisis adds large-scale surveys will have to be conducted to estimate
one more layer to old lists of neglected crises. For this rea- the number of children whose schools stopped functioning.
son, a situation of compounded neglect prevails in Indian Many among them tried to shift to government schools in
education across the spectrum. some states. But to accommodate these children in govern-
Let’s start with early childhood. Mid-day meals and the ment schools in any meaningful way, will require signifi-
nutrition given at anganwadis stopped when the Corona- cant augmentation of their infrastructure. In the event that
virus struck India in early 2020. Governments knew that some budget schools manage to resume their services, they
disruption of food distribution programmes in anganwadis too will require government financial support to make it
and primary schools would cause widespread malnutrition possible for their low-paid teachers to improve classroom
in a highly vulnerable age group. But little effort was made conditions.
to find a safe way to continue to provide meals to youngest In the higher primary and secondary grades, vast num-
children while regular classes were suspended. When the bers of children have reportedly dropped out of school
pandemic relents, compensating in full measure for the loss altogether. Nobody has any reliable idea regarding their
of nutrition will be difficult, but every effort will have to be whereabouts and the contribution they might be making
made to assess the extent of loss and mitigate its long-term to the income of their families. Bringing them back to school
impact. will be a monumental task, compounded by the need to
The use of smart phones for online instruction to chil- provide remedial education to children compromised by
dren who didn’t have access to laptops will also have conse- online teaching.
quences, particularly for the eyesight of primary school chil- here are no easy answers to how best these academi-
dren. Assessment of this impact should be a high priority, so Tcally damaged children can be competently served. The
that remedial measures can be taken as quickly as possible. policy document issued during the pandemic provides no
The type of emergency schooling that was prescribed for clues or insights into this matter. A fresh effort to formulate
primary grades is itself questionable, but the time for ques- a policy relevant to the prevalent circumstances will have
tioning is perhaps already behind us. How best our teachers to be made, and each state will have to make this effort to
can be equipped to resume regular classes in the post-Covid respond to its unique circumstances. Over recent years, it
future is the more relevant question. has become clear that it is pointless to look for serious guid-
Teacher training has been the weakest link in our edu- ance or support from the Centre. Our education institutions
cation system. Both pre-service teacher education and will require financial boosting and credible leadership to
in-service professional development programmes have create and sustain a climate in which institutional recovery
remained academically weak all these years. It’s hard to happens without false pride over trivial achievements. India
realistically imagine any improvement in this sector unless has a history of taking education lightly. Now that a full-
radical changes take place in the administrative and politi- scale systemic crisis is upon us, this history needs a break.
cal climate. For guiding us along the path of improvement Latterly, higher secondary school-leaving board exami-
in teacher education, the Justice J.S. Verma Commission nations have dominated the public discourse. Initiatives
report is still available as a highly relevant document. Cen- taken to reduce the syllabus for these examinations will
tral and state governments, as well as private institutions surely impact undergraduate education. A recent reprint
of a brilliant book by the late Muriel Wasi titled Bricks and
can profit from close study of this report.
The pandemic has forced a vast number of low-fee charg- Mortar (2021), offers many insights for developing a new
ing private schools to a halt in many regions of the coun- vision for secondary and post-secondary education. Her
try. These schools were dependent on the fees that children insights reinvoke the hopes and confidence of the early de-
paid. The loss of parental income on account of the first cades of independence.
serious lockdown in the summer of 2020 and subsequent (Dr. Krishna Kumar is former director of NCERT and former professor of
lockdowns of different lengths made it impossible for education at Delhi University)

JUNE 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 29