The Challenge Of Going Back To School

Context: Schools re-opening guidelines should focus on addressing learning difficulties along with health measures.

Impact of the pandemic on education:

• Disruption in education: Most migrant children went back to their home states, and there is no data of how many re-joined schools there or how many returned.
• Learning loss of disadvantaged group: Outcome of  School Children’s Online and Offline Learning (SCHOOL) survey showed that
  • 42% of students in grades 3-5 in villages and urban bastis could only read a few letters.
  • Only 55% of students in grades 6-8 could fluently read a simple conversational sentence.
  • Lack of the required knowledge of the academic language in the upper primary/lower secondary grades.
• Unrealistic examination timetable (without any focus on socio-emotional learning): States have announced ‘ bridge courses’  as short as 45 days to complete the syllabus without taking into account loss due to pandemics.
• School Dropouts: Most ‘low cost ‘private schools suffered from dropouts and financial challenges, and approximately 25% of children switched from private schools to government schools.
• Other Challenges: Majority of children are studying in English medium schools discarding their native language which in itself is leading to -
  • Difficulty in comprehension skills.
  • Increase in ‘English language learners’ (i.e., those with limited proficiency in English) obtaining ‘failing grades’ within just a few months of school closures.

Way Forward: “Long-term commitment, resources and organisational effort towards education” by

• Reorganising the curriculum: Focusing on language learning, core mathematical competencies and socio-emotional learning.
• Supporting teacher through -
  • Restructuring the ‘daily timetable’ to focus on areas such as language learning, mathematical and socio-emotional learning.
  • Adopting a ‘coaching’ model instead of mass teacher training programmes.
  • Providing additional learning materials and formative assessment tools and techniques.
  • Hiring additional teachers (retired and volunteers) wherever needed.
• Focusing on equity: Special efforts must be made for children from disadvantaged backgrounds to bring them back to schools.
• Communicating regularly with parents.
• Securing additional funding for education: India needs to spend up to its spending on education, which declined to 2.6% in the overall Budget.