Context: With the extreme hardships that the pandemic has unleashed, there is a need to reimagine models of education to close the learning gaps.
Challenges to learning during pandemic:
Rural-Urban divide: Transition of school to digital platforms has been relatively smooth for Urban regions compared to rural areas.
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) report shows that only about a third of all children in rural areas managed to receive any study material from their teachers.
Digital divide: In vast rural India, only 4% of homes own a computer
Infrastructure gaps leading to inadequate teacher training, low educational resources and a lack of digital access point.
Reduced learning capacity: due to low enrolment, shift to government schools, dropouts, especially by young girls in rural areas
Way Forward: Measures to overcome challenges:
Use Low-Tech mediums: Redesign curriculum for delivery at scale over low-end technologies like radio
Self-sustaining, hyper-local learning communities coalescing can be utilized for the purpose
Sensitize parents to ‘learn through play’: Showing parents, especially those of rural areas who consider learning and playing separate entities. It will lead to:
Parent empowerment: for those ill-equipped to teach their children
Socio-emotional benefit: due to bonds built overplay, families and community gains
Blended Learning: Embedding digital access into available material through picture recognition or QR codes will enable virtual learning and enhance outcomes for those without mentoring support.
Teacher skilling and equipping: Partnerships between governments, education institutions and civil societytocreate mixed-media content that is easy to use and share, aids multi-sensory learning
Create feedback loops for assessment
Enabling teacher to stay in touch with students and ensure continuous learning despite interruptions in rural areas like migration for work etc.