India’s learning poverty has risen, says World Bank official

The World Bank’s global director of education, Jaime Saavedra, was in India last week to meet Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and the governments of Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh to discuss concerns over children’s learning loss. covid-19 pandemic And concerted efforts are needed to bridge these gaps. in a sitting interview with Jagriti Chandra, He talks about the impact of school closures in India, the need for re-enrollment campaigns and the re-evaluation of learning levels.Schools open after a gap of two years and calls for investment in education technology to complement classroom teaching.

What was the agenda of your visit to India?

we met the education minister [Dharmendra Pradhan] to share with him as the World Bank We place great emphasis on actions that are needed globally and in various countries and across the world to reduce learning losses due to the impact of the pandemic on education systems. Globally, we were living in a learning crisis even before the pandemic. Now, this major setback has left us two-year-olds out of school, with a dramatic impact on their learning and their well-being. Obviously, they share these concerns and we will continue to work with them to accelerate the learning process. We visited Gujarat, which is making great strides on how to accelerate the learning process. We visited their Command and Control Center, where they monitor both teachers and students to see how they can better assist them. Then we were in UP to visit schools and in Delhi we held meetings with NGOs and think tanks. This is in the context of the World Bank’s huge support to India which includes a $2.1 billion portfolio to the country.

What is your assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on education in India?

We see the effects of the pandemic in all countries, but certainly much greater in countries that have had the longest shutdowns, such as those in South Asia and Latin America. According to our learning poverty calculations, we have found that if before the pandemic about 53% of children were not able to read a simple text by the age of 10, which is already a crisis, unfortunately with the pandemic this would increase. It’s 70. , In India, learning poverty has increased from 54% to 70%. We don’t have real data, these are simulations.

according to the first bearing surveyThe share of grade 3 students in government schools capable of performing simple subtraction in rural Karnataka has fallen from 24% in 2018 to 16% in 2020. We have seen that what was largely lost was the extent of school closures.

In So Paulo, a year after the pandemic, scores in both learning and math dropped, which took the state’s children back to that level in 2011. That’s a learning loss of 10 years. This is a matter of concern for all of us.

That’s why we need to worry about making sure we don’t create inequalities from generation to generation. If we don’t do something now then this generation will suffer as compared to previous and next generation because they were born in specific years and were between five to 18 years. If we don’t do something now, this generation will have less productivity, less income, less welfare in future and this we should avoid.

How can schools work to bridge the learning gap?

The first action is to open the school. Most countries have opened schools by now but there are still some that are only partially open. However, schools being open does not mean that children are coming back on their own. We need to reach out to every child to ensure that they are all re-enrolled. We need very aggressive enrollment campaigns, communication campaigns [both] Macro-level such as national and state level as well as community level so that they take action to ensure that they bring children back to school. [as] Many children are now working, or doing household chores , The second important action is to assess learning to know where children are today. Third, we have to prioritize teaching the fundamentals , Many countries have a very rich and intensive curriculum with many subjects, but we need to ensure that children are focusing on the fundamentals, at least in the beginning. Fourth, we need to enhance catch-up learning which will require very effective instructional timing. [To achieve this] Teachers will need a great deal of support within the classroom to be able to group students not by class or by age, but according to where they are. And finally, we really need to work on emotional support for both children and teachers. ,

Surveys have shown that declining household incomes have forced many students to drop out of private schools and enroll in government schools. But there is a huge lack of quality in private and government schools. How can governments respond to this transition?

This is something that we see globally. Two things have happened. Small private schools have closed, and parents don’t have the resources to pay. This has increased the pressure on government schools. It can be a mixed blessing. Government and private schools have to enhance the quality of their offering to meet the needs of these children and increase the resources or efficiency of their resources or a combination of both.

In response to the pandemic, there is a major emphasis on digital literacy by the Indian government. But given that there are access problems resulting in increasing harm for the marginalized, is this a step in the right direction?

The fact that education television and radio returned after being abandoned for many years is a good development. We need such resilient systems because we don’t know what the next natural disaster is going to be. On the digital front, educational technology in general has the potential to be a great equalizer, but it is still a divider around the world. All countries need to close this divide by investing in the entire ecosystem, not in software or hardware. But investing in educational technology is not a solution in itself. The pandemic has taught us that the magic of learning lies in the interactions between students and teachers that will never be replaced by technology. But technology to complement the human factor to make the work of teachers more effective and effective.

While there has been a demand for more budgetary allocation for education to overcome the challenges due to COVID-19, what is the way out in a situation where it is lacking?

In many cases, the first line of action is to spend the money you have and be effective and efficient at spending it. Now globally although we need more resources in education per student, but [lack of increased allocations] There could be an excuse. In the short term, we need to be more influential and focused on children’s education.