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Special Report

LEADERS REINVENTING

25 K-12 EDUCATION

Against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic and forced national/
state lockdowns which have accentuated the infirmities of India’s
failing K-12 education system, we present recommendations
of selected school leaders on ways and means to reinvent K-12
education in the post-Covid era

Summiya Yasmeen

T HE GLOBAL COVID-19 PANDEMIC the Annual Status of Education Report 2018 published by

and forced national/state lockdowns
Pratham Education Foundation, the number of primary
school children in class V who cannot read and comprehend
have highlighted the infirmities of
class II textbooks has risen — rather than reduced — to 56
India’s failing K-12 education sys-
percent, and the percentage of class VIII children who can
tem. Already struggling against
dismal student learning outcomes,
percent. “Even before Covid hit us earlier this year, this wide
minimally trained teachers, obsolete
diversity of learning levels has been a chronic problem of our
syllabuses, rote-centred pedagogies, solve a simple three-by-one digit division sum is a mere 40
and inadequate infrastructure in the classrooms for years. The majority of children, especially in
pre-Covid era, the country’s 1.5 million schools — shuttered government schools, are several years behind grade level.
since early March to arrest the spread of the Coronavirus — When schools reopen it is likely this variation of learning
are floundering to ensure learning continuity for India’s 256 levels in each grade will have widened further; the lower end
million school-going children. of the distribution will have become thicker,” says Rukmini
In the country’s 1.2 million state government schools, Banerjee, CEO of Pratham Education in The Indian Express
learning has all but stopped with a few states such as Kerala (July 28).
and Delhi broadcasting token classes over television and According to Ambarish Rai, national convenor of the
radio. And though the country’s 450,000 recognised private RTE Forum, a coalition of over 10,000 NGOs, educationists
schools and 400,000 private budget schools claim to have and social activists gathered under the forum’s banner to
switched to conducting online classes and lectures, only a enforce the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Educa-
thin sliver of well-funded and efficiently managed private tion (RTE) Act, 2009, an estimated 20 percent (50 million)
education institutions are dispensing acceptable quality, children from marginalised households are likely to drop out
digitally transmitted education to children. of education because of prolonged closure of schools. “They
The consensus among education experts is that the five- will enter the child labour force and/or become vulnerable
month closure of schools will inflict a massive aggregate to trafficking and/or pushed into early marriage. It will be
loss of learning the country can ill-afford. According to a huge challenge to get them back to school and learning,”

70 EDUCATIONWORLD AUGUST 2020