UNESCO estimates that every month the school is closed has resulted in 2 months of lost learning, which means disadvantaged children are already nearly two years behind in terms of learning outcomes.
With a new minister at the helm, the Union’s Education Ministry, along with states, must chart a course out of the crisis caused by the pandemic in school education. As this newspaper has repeatedly pointed out earlier, while online courses have, to some extent, replaced in-person classes with students from more affluent households, the closure of schools has clearly left the greatest number of students – education beneficiaries from poor households – in deep trouble. As a result, the already large gaps in learning outcomes between students in public and private schools, which ASER’s findings have highlighted from year to year, have likely worsened. Anu Aga, Vijay Kelkar and Raghunath Mashelkar, administrators of the Pune International Center, recently wrote in Mint how the disadvantage of students from poor households could be very difficult to overcome if schools remain closed; citing the experience of the TeachForIndia initiative over the past and a half years, they say, even with funded devices, dedicated WhatsApp groups, upgrading teachers, distributing material learning packages, and more. Online learning has not worked for the majority of disadvantaged children.
UNESCO estimates that every month the school is closed has resulted in 2 months of lost learning, which means disadvantaged children are already nearly two years behind in terms of learning outcomes. More disturbingly, wave 1 of ASER 2020 reports a greater proportion of children in the school-age cohort (6-16 years) out of school in 2020 compared to 2018. A sharp drop was reported for the 6 -10 years. cohort; as the first few years are lost, the chances of these children entering the school system later diminish. As it stands, India’s high school enrollment rate has meant little in terms of developing human potential – only a quarter of students entering the school system make it to the top. college level, according to AISHE 2019-20. In addition, teachers, as a report from Azim Premji University pointed out last year, have also struggled, with brick-and-mortar classrooms closed. The impact of this on pedagogy only increases the chances of poor learning outcomes for a large part of the students in the country.
Experts believe that the probability of spread among children is not significantly different from that of other age cohorts, and that reopening schools may not have too large an impact on transmission rates across the country. population. Aga et al go up schools by allowing, perhaps on the basis of a list, 25% of the overall enrollment on any given day. This could be a start, but the longer-term approach must focus on extending immunization coverage. While teachers should be given priority for immunization, the government should incentivize approved vaccine developers to conduct trials and deploy vaccines for the school-age population. A trial of Covaxin in children aged 2 to 18, according to reports, has just completed recruitment. A good way to energize companies on such trials is to offer incentives – the Center urged vaccine manufacturers to leverage the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations program to generate complementary clinical trial data for vaccines , but the government should have already helped companies do it.
Get live stock quotes for BSE, NSE, US market and latest net asset value, mutual fund portfolio, see the latest IPO news, top IPOs, calculate your tax with the help of the income tax calculator, know the best winners, the best losers and the best equity funds in the market. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
Financial Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel and stay up to date with the latest news and updates from Biz.
–
