EDUCATION IN COVD-19….. A NEW NORM?
The COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented health crisis that does not differentiate between borders, ethnicities, age, gender or disability status, has become a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As known to all, the health impacts of this virus are devastating and, rightly, in the forefront of our minds, across our media, the broken and undermined healthcare system of each and every country has got exposed. Both the lives and livelihood of millions of people have been affected and lakhs have lost their loved ones. While it continues to spread it is important that communities take action to prevent further transmission, reduce the impacts of the outbreak and support control measures.
The pandemic has not only undermined trust in the capacity of healthcare to respond to the crisis but has also raised concerns about the potential erosion of human rights. Education, a key ally in defending these human rights, has got disrupted with billions of students and youth across the planet being affected by school closures. The nationwide closures have affected almost 1.6 billion students across 186 countries, contributing to 90 percent of the world’s student population. Closures happened in quick succession as a measure to contain the spread of virus, but as can be expected, the longer the school interruption the larger the learning loss. Apart from deepening the learning crisis, the prolonged school closures will exacerbate inequalities and expose the vulnerable children to risk of exploitation.
Indian teachers are used to teach in classrooms in a traditional way using the chalk and blackboard and the students are equally trained to note their homework on notebooks. However, due to school closures this methodology was changed overnight. The switch over from physical classrooms to online teaching became the most far reaching experiment in the history of education. Both the students and teachers, despite challenges, tried their best to maintain the standards and continue with the objective of teaching and learning. The virtual interactions and learning opportunities might have solved the purpose, but the core mission of any school system that comprises the promotion of students wellbeing related to school performance is really missing. With students at home and absent school community, the children are missing a physical space as also a social and emotional learning. The obvious challenges around this transition, apart from setting up of infrastructure and teaching methods, are understanding privacy issues since the platforms used are not secure. Parents/caregivers who do not have the same level of education, or do not speak the major language of instruction in the country, or who have children with special educational needs, face compounded challenges. Unfortunately, half the world’s students don’t have access to a household computer and/or smart phone and the chance of learning loss over this period is nearly inevitable. This loss will lead to an ever increasing gap between learners and in any case, it will not fully compensate.
Schools are not only the places of learning, but they also provide social protection, nutrition, health and emotional support to the children. The mid-day meal (MDM) is a flagship scheme that not only promotes enrolment and retention of children in schools but also addresses the issue of hunger. Till 2019, the scheme has benefitted about 9.12 crore children across 11.35 lakh schools all over the country. We can shift to online learning, but not online eating and since the schools are closed these children are missing out on an important school feeding programmes. Lack of access to school meals may compound loss of income and the families may be pushed to resort to negative coping mechanisms to meet their needs, including child labour. The longer the marginalised children are out of school, the less likely are the chances of their return and thereby, they must be the priority of any strategy that envisages the flexible learning approaches.
As the pandemic continues to evolve in an exponential manner, we need to do things not only differently, but better. To reopen schools is one of the toughest and sensitive decisions and not just a simple matter of weighing risks and benefits. These decisions are context specific, and depend upon the capacity of schools to mitigate risks of infection transmission, provide necessary safeguards and promote healthy behaviours. Even if the government gives green signal to reopen schools, much will depend on how comfortable parents are and whether they are willing to risk sending their kids to school. Furthermore, if schools are reopened, access to soap and clean water for hand washing and social distancing measures need to be followed, for which schools will have to consider big enough classrooms, limit the mixing of classes, reduce the number of students on site through double shifts and screening at the entry, among a slew of other measures. All this needs an up gradation of infrastructure and recruitment of more manpower, but the current scenario where hospitals are in shambles, the priority should be to ameliorate the healthcare system and save more lives rather than something else.
Today, children and young people are powerful agents of change and any crisis presents an opportunity to help them learn. The pandemic has utterly disrupted a traditional educational system and a new hybrid model has emerged that might be unconducive at present but will be more important for success in future. The key message is that School reopening during this global crisis should not be considered till normalcy returns and the marginalised kids should be short listed, be kept in the loop of learning process by alternative means and be provided with home delivery of uncooked nutritional meals in the form of eggs, pulses, rice and other items. The COVID-19 crisis has given us an opportunity to re-assess what type of school we want for the future and all the stakeholders like government, teachers, parents and community at large need to work in unison for the successful outcome.
Dr. Pawan Suri
MBBS, MD, DM, FESC, FSCAI
Chief Cardiologist, SGL SuperSpeciality Hospital
Jalandhar, Punjab
Mail : pawanksuri2000@rediffmail.com
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