The two boys were swinging on the skeleton of a broken tractor, a pile of stones between them, which they were throwing at a pole about 25 feet away. Focusing on the competition, he didn’t notice that I had to go through his line of fire to reach the school. He only stopped when I called him. what class are you in? I asked. We don’t go to school. How can you not go to school? Well we just don’t. Why? We work and earn now. Which class should you be in? Class 7. Have you been to school after reopening? Yes, but it sucks; We have no idea what is happening; We had better earnings and play. is that your school? Yes.
The school had resumed after a 17-month shutdown. From class 3 to 8, I asked the same question and heard the same answer. What do you remember when you last visited the school in March 2020? Very little, if anything. So what are you doing now? Copying text from a book. Do you understand any of this? Not really, since we’ve forgotten most of what we learned in the first two classes; It is impossible to understand all this now. What are you going to do now? Our teachers will tell us.
Two teachers and the headmaster were waiting outside the classrooms. They wanted me to do an independent assessment of the situation, and so they didn’t go to classes with me. What are you going to do now? I asked them. we do not know; We have been instructed to recover 17 years of lost education in 1 month. How will you do it? We can’t, it’s impossible. So what are you going to do about it? We don’t know.
As I was leaving, the headmaster said, “Could you please explain to the higher-ups that our response couldn’t be worse, more irresponsible; we are failing all the children in our country, we are failing education.” You can also shut down the system.”
From that school, I went to a community meeting in a nearby village to discuss the progress of COVID vaccination. The Block Education Officer was also there. He was actively supporting the vaccination campaign—arranging camps in schools, organizing teachers to help organize the community, and much more. At the end of the meeting, as we chatted, I asked him about his plan to recover the education he had lost from the last 17 months, now that schools had opened in his state. “Looks like we don’t have a plan, sir. We have repeatedly conveyed the dire situation to the higher authorities. They are all sympathetic. But we don’t understand why no systematic action is being taken “
Children have not been going to school since 17 months. Besides this loss, they have forgotten what they knew when the school closed. How can schools be restarted as if life has returned to normal for the last one and a half years? Many states are taking this approach, mostly paying lip-service to efforts to recover this huge loss. Very few states are responding adequately. And all this when everyone in the education system knows the bitter reality.
The teachers facing this crisis are helpless. His voice is clear to everyone who cares to be heard. We conducted a field study with 363 teachers, with over 10,000 students under their charge. His views were consistent.
First, individual classes are important for real learning, which kids have missed for too long. In addition, many of the basic abilities previously acquired are lost. For example, in primary classes, children have forgotten the ability to describe a picture in their own words, read text with comprehension, write simple sentences and perform basic mathematical operations.
Second, as schools reopen, teaching should take into account the actual learning level of each child and not start with the regular curriculum of that class. Given the extent of learning loss, it will be necessary to assess the basic abilities in all classes to make up for the lost learning.
Third, a change in curriculum will be required. A curricular load reduction will allow a focus on core competencies with carefully planned attention to all core competencies. This should be done from class 1 to 12. Enabling classroom efforts will require a variety of teaching and learning materials.
Fourth, schools have to respond directly to other related issues, such as breaking the habit of school attendance.
Fifth, it takes time and patience for teachers to provide autonomy in the classroom, support from the administration and help children regain their lost learning. All other steps, including curriculum and pedagogical changes, will not be useful unless teachers are given sufficient time to work on correcting learning losses in their respective classrooms.
We don’t know how many of our 25 crore school children will drop out, as many are caught in situations that we could not have imagined 18 months ago. We should not let this happen. A nationwide effort will have to be made at the grassroots level to bring all children back to school.
And then everything must be done to recover the lost education for all our children. Anything less than a continuous and coordinated mission will not suffice. I too, as accustomed to the methods of our education system, am astonished that this seemingly obvious problem is being acted upon by only a few states, while many go on as if the pandemic had not occurred. And that our schools were never closed.
Anurag Behar is the CEO of Azim Premji Foundation
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