Page 74 - EW November 2025.pdf Final

Cover Story

Prolonged pandemic schools lockdown

n March 16, 2020 the Union government announced the closure
of all schools, colleges and universities across the country to
control and check spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. All major
Oexaminations, including public entrance exams such as JEE and
NEET were postponed and several school-leaving board exams in the states
of the Indian Union abandoned midway. This directive was also applied to
higher and professional education institutions, which also had to close down
campuses and discontinue classes and project work mid-semester. Schools
and HEIs were advised to continue teaching-learning in the online mode.
However, this cautionary lockdown transformed into the world’s second
longest (after Uganda) education lockdown of 56 weeks resulting in unprec-
edented learning loss suffered by the world’s largest child and youth popula-
tion. EducationWorld strongly opposed the unwarranted prolonged lock-
down of education institutions. Though schools reopened in late 2021/early
2022, several studies indicate that millions of children are still struggling to
regain the learning ground lost during the pandemic lockdown.
See www.educationworld.in Archives (Cover stories: ‘Why schools should
reopen now’ (July 2021); ‘Pandemic thunderbolt endangers early years
education’ (February 2021); ‘10 Post-pandemic recovery solutions (March
2022))

74 EDUCATIONWORLD NOVEMBER 2025