A recent study done in 16 states and union territories of India states that the education literacy among children of poor backgrounds is enormously decreasing.
As the pandemic strikes the world, every sector had a significant fall down. The education system was also severely affected, and to cope up with that, introduced an online learning system.
The prolonged use of online learning systems seems to produce some side effects in children.
October seems to be a month to resume offline learning, which the pandemic paused in 2019. The schools are preparing to welcome students for offline classes.
School Survey
In August, researchers did the SCHOOL (School Children’s Online and Offline Learning) survey in India, focusing on the children of slums, where children attend government schools.
Only 8 per cent of rural children participate in online classes regularly, and the other students don’t have the facilities to attend the online class.
Maybe they live in a house with a smartphone. Still, the other necessities like internet connection, connectivity, money for recharging mobile phones etc., may not be accessible or available in rural areas and seems challenging for rural children to have a proper education system.
Nearly 100 volunteers across the country have supported conducting this survey.
The coordination team Nirali Bakhla, Jean Drèze, Reetika Khera and Vipul Paikra. arranged the report of the study
The survey covered 1,362 children as a sample spread across 15 states, including Assam, Bihar, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
Among the students observed for the study purpose, 8 per cent of children were drawn out of the learning ecosystem, as parents sent them for some paid labour works.
The research also shows that 37% of children were dropped out of the study due to this pandemic.
Re-opening of School
Almost all schools plan to re-open in October. But the study says, re-opening won’t act as an effective solution to repair the damage caused by the pandemic on the education system.
For the past two years, children are not getting the proper education, and they have been upgrading to higher classes without any tests.
Children in the lower class may not have an idea regarding reading their languages, and by upgrading to the next class, they are struggling to read English and other languages.
The survey has found that among the observed children who were part of the study, were enrolled in private schools before the lockdown, 26% of children now shifted to government schools due to financial crisis.
That enlarges the challenge of re-opening schools as it floods the public-school classrooms with more children.
Suggestion to improve the education system
Jean Drèze, visiting professor in the Department of Economics at Ranchi University, says schools should give time to children to learn all those things taught until now.
Schools must give time till April 2024 to know all the syllabus of the presently enrolled class. And he expects parents as well to welcome this system.
Most parents who researchers approached for this study have supported school re-opening at the earliest.
Ten per cent of the parents in urban areas had some reluctance in sending their children to school, while 97% of parents supported the re-opening of schools.
The report said the continued school lockdown, one of the longest globally, has led to a “colossal disaster”.
