1.5 years of school closure and the declining learning level among the children

While various sectors are getting back to the “new normal”, the reopening of academic institutions is still a question.

By Anoushka Sawhney

“When I first found out about the closure of schools, I felt confused. I had no idea about the term online classes,” says Riya Bhargav, class 7 student at Kishan Girls Inter college, Meerut. She mentioned thrice in our conversation that she “likes going to school”.

Bhargav is one among the 247 million students, who according to United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) data, were affected by school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lockdown announced in March 2020 impacted all sectors adversely, and one such sector was education. For over a year now, schools in India have remained closed.

According to a survey by School Children’s Online and Offline Learning (SCHOOL), only 8 per cent of children in rural areas, as compared to 25 per cent in urban areas, attended online classes regularly in August 2021. The survey was spread across 15 states and covered 1362 underprivileged children.

The reasons for not attending online classes regularly, as per the survey, were lack of money for internet data, poor internet, lack of personal smartphones in the household, etc. Only 12 per cent of children in rural areas who studied online had access to a personal smartphone.

“Sometimes, there was no internet or battery in the phone for attending the classes. My brother and I would attend classes through one smartphone. First three days of the week, he used to attend and the next three days I used to,” says Bhargav.

Locked inside their homes, the COVID-19 pandemic has put the future of children at stake. In ‘Reporting on Children, Schools, and the Pandemic’, a webinar conducted on September 23, 2021, Terry Durnnian, chief of education, UNICEF India, said the education sector has moved “from crisis to catastrophe”.

A study undertaken by Azim Premji Foundation in January 2021, covering 16067 children in 1137 public schools across five states, showed that on average, 92 per cent and 82 per cent of children across classes 2-6 “have lost at least one specific” language ability and mathematical ability, respectively from the previous year.

“Maths is difficult to understand online,” says Bhargav who attended her entire class 6 in online mode.

According to a study by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in March 2021, the percentage of children in class 5 of government schools who can read the text of class 2 level decreased from 45.7 per cent in 2014 to 32.8 per cent in 2020 in rural Karnataka.

The pandemic put a halt on the daily activities of the parents, who found it difficult to arrange money for two square meals a day. “From where to arrange food, what work to do and how to ensure the continuation of education of the children were some of our biggest concerns,” says Mamata Bhargav, Riya’s mother.

“Fifty per cent of children did not have access to smartphones,” says Rekha Sharma (name changed), a primary school teacher at a government school under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in Jani, Meerut. She adds, “The parents told us that we don’t have any work. Should we recharge our internet data or arrange food for the family?”

In the same webinar mentioned above, Dr. Prabhdeep Kaur, a scientist at the National Institute of Epidemiology, India, Chennai said, “School reopening will mitigate the learning loss, improve the nutrition of the children who are part of the midday meal program and avoid losing children to child labour.” She talks about a “sample alert system” through which “case numbers incident, that is, for a given population how many cases are there, test positivity rate, and bed occupancy” can be tracked. She adds, “This can tell us about the level of transmission and help us make informed decisions in regards to reopening of schools.”

As COVID-19 cases are declining, many states such as Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan have reopened the schools - one of the most anticipated events of the year. This has been a relief for all stakeholders in the education sector.

When asked if they would prefer online education or offline education, Riya and her mother Mamata replied: “of course offline education”. To this Riya added, “I like going to school.”

Cover image credit: The Indian Express