Children and schooling in the post-COVID-19 era

When someone in the family falls ill, all normal routines and arrangements get affected. And then, the deeper problems hidden under the pace of routine are exposed and revealed. The same thing applies to the pandemic. The term currently used is ‘pandemic’ because it covers the entire world, but one cannot forget that even a universal disease manifests itself in regionally specific, localized ways, highlighting those problems. To whom society had become accustomed. In our case, the pandemic has revealed the limits of our means to meet the collective needs of children during a disaster. The position of a child in the family is fundamentally different from the status given to children as a collective unit in our country. The pandemic has revealed that society and state institutions prefer to ignore the circumstances under which the family copes with the demands of childhood.

peripheral anxiety

Children’s education and health are two major areas in which the welfare policies of the modern state are expected to support and enhance the role of the family. In both these areas, the policy framework reflects a minimal stance in terms of both financial investment and institutional strength. There is considerable diversity and disparity among states in policies as well as their implementation. The overall picture suggests that childhood is characterized by peripheral anxiety. Keeping up with the gains made in this context has proved difficult.

the impact of the pandemic

When the Right to Education (RTE) Act was enacted a decade ago, it looked like a success. This perception was based on the structures and processes created under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan during the decade before RTE. These structures were not perfect, but they marked a new beginning towards local autonomy and devolution of power. These delicate structures require nourishment on a long-term basis. Neglect and decay started very soon in areas where the system was initially weak, and then came COVID-19. Several recent surveys show that the pandemic has devastated the entire system. Even a basic thing like food for the youngest took off. Teaching replaced the bulk of the online mode, leaving the family to face the demands hidden in this medium. A flat discourse pervaded the ethos, providing few alternatives or clues to enhance them.

India was unique in the fact that even the youngest group was covered by online learning. With the reopening of schools, the consequences of prolonged exposure to digital devices in confined spaces are beginning to be revealed and documented. Most children from lower socio-economic backgrounds could not access online learning for reasons completely beyond their control. And those who had access to online lessons had significantly lower rates of comprehension and progress.

Studies show that academic loss is exacerbated by emotional problems. A survey conducted by Vipala Foundation revealed the kind of stress children experience at home. Exposure to domestic violence, prolonged exposure to TV, especially among boys, and addiction to digital sources of entertainment are among the various consequences of COVID-19 confinement.

a recovery plan

Systemic reform will undoubtedly prove difficult. The time required for recovery will depend on imagination and resources. An important beginning has been made in Tamil Nadu. Professor R. The committee headed by Ramanujam has been asked to prepare a three-year recovery plan and a new curriculum. A major problem that this committee will need to address is the addictive effect of long-term online learning. Devices like smartphones put young children in a seductive bond that is not easy to shake. Restoring children’s innate desire to connect with the world around them physically and socially would be a major step towards educational reform. It will demand de-addiction from digital devices.

The COVID experimentation of a special reliance on digital machinery has resulted in a massive expansion of its market. It has also allowed digital activism to turn into an ideological principle of progress. The Ramanujam Committee may not find it easy to deal with this theory. Its believers and new recruits must be persuaded to listen to child psychologists and teachers of young children. Their voices, even if they are weak now, hold the best promise of healing our wounded system.

It was not a robust and flexible system in the beginning. Its key functionaries – the teachers – had little say in decisions and no autonomy to do their best. Distrust in the teacher cuts across the deep divisions that characterize the system. On one side of the divide are the different types of government schools, with varying levels of funding but common standards of governance. On the other hand there are private schools ranging from budget schools to affluent, elite institutions. Sustaining this struggling order of institutional organizations is the grand national imagination that even an inadequate system like India can produce sufficient numbers of good doctors, judges, teachers, engineers, civil servants, etc.

transfer of children

No description can capture the different realities of experience that COVID-19 has imposed on this vast array of institutions. Nor are there any comprehensive studies to tell us how parents of different socio-economic classes deal with their concerns. We now know that financial constraints have forced a large proportion of children studying in private schools to shift to government schools. What this change means for children and the schools they will now attend requires much more than speculation. Actually, change itself is a raw reality. In a recent webinar, Professor Shanta Sinha, former head of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, spoke about the surprising demand faced by parents who want to shift their children from a private to a government school. Were. Since many private schools run solely on fee basis, they had to be closed during COVID-19. The digital record of enrollment of children maintained in some states continues to show their names in a private school. The transfer requires deletion from this record. Pro. Sinha said that many private schools in his area demand recovery of COVID-19 period fee for deleting the name of the child. This is just one example of the hundreds of bitter experiential facts that we would need to gather from every part of the country to prepare a COVID-19 recovery plan of any credible and practical value.

practical report

For now, the best we can do is browse through a new United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) report titled “No Teacher, No Class” (https://bit.ly/31HJFKi) And pay attention to its wisdom. recommendations. This report, prepared by a team of scholars from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, suggests that India is facing a shortage of at least one million school teachers. Several important recommendations have been made in the report. The first is: “Improving the conditions of employment of teachers in both public and private schools.” Some other recommendations are: to value the professional autonomy of teachers, to create career paths and, above all, to recruit more teachers. If sound, research-based advice is what we need to rebuild the system, it’s available in this excellent report.

Krishna Kumar is a former director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). He is the author of ‘Small Citizens’