As the world begins to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic which severely disrupted K-12 schooling, the challenges confronting India’s education system need to be urgently addressed, writes Elisabeth Evi
Indian education was severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. While many children missed school altogether during the world’s most prolonged schools lockdown — averaging 82 weeks — among major countries, partnerships between the public and private sectors and incremental use of educational technology permitted a minority of children to continue their schooling. As the world begins to recover in the aftermath of this calamity, the challenges confronting India’s education system need to be urgently addressed.
Making good learning loss of primary children. E-learning facilitated continuation of learning for a substantial number of children, especially in urban India. However, the positive effect was mostly for secondary school students. The overwhelming majority of preschool and primary (K-II) children have never attended school. These children need to be acclimatised to daily routines and expectations of the education system. Additionally, they need to learn the basics of reading, writing and math, while learning age-appropriate and grade-level content. Any strategy for moving forward must include plans for remediation that also address progress in students’ current grade learning outcomes.
[userpro_private restrict_to_roles=
Reverse migration. Millions of people lost their jobs during the pandemic. Low-income households were hardest hit, prompting urban migrant labour and their families to return to their villages. Many children had to drop out of school due to the hardships and economic instability faced by their families, and many studying in urban government schools had to enrol in rural schools dispensing relatively low quality education. These reverse migrant students can help to raise teaching-learning standards in rural schools. Simultaneously, governments of states such as Rajasthan and Jharkhand are improving infrastructure and amenities and training teachers to make rural schools attractive to children. Plans for increased enrolment need to take into account the unprecedented reverse migration to rural India, and develop the education sector as a whole.
Drop-out teachers. Teachers are fundamental to education. But India’s education system has largely failed teachers. During the long months of the pandemic, a majority of teachers in affordable budget private schools and many government schools were laid off or not paid fully and in time, prompting a large number of qualified teachers to drop out of the education system to work in tech companies that mushroomed to provide online learning during the pandemic. Continuous employment uncertainty for teachers, lack of a proper support system and the reluctance to confront these challenges will continue to force teachers to drop out of the system. These on-ground realities must be addressed to improve K-12 education.
Digital divide. The clear digital divide between urban and rural populations that became glaringly evident during the pandemic, is a prime cause for reigniting the rusting cogs of the education machinery. Major factors contributing to this widening gap are unequal access to technology, lack of financial resources, and under-developed rural areas. Millions of students in India who aren’t from privileged backgrounds don’t have access to digital equipment and connectivity, ranging from availability of high-speed internet to smartphones. This disparity is degrading the quality and consistency of learning outcomes in government and budget private schools in particular.
The Indian education system has often been castigated as regressive, slow, obsolete and memory-based. The Central and state governments are making efforts to place the education sector back on track. It is investing in policies and measures to augment the growth and reach of education countrywide. But the moribund system is sluggish and slow to respond.
Against this backdrop, the most important priority is to modernise. Excellence centres, community sessions, and e-learning programmes need to be started with focus on accessibility for all. Students must be enabled to access resources, information and support to turn education into a passport for getting meaningful and well-remunerated employment.
Simultaneously, there’s urgent need to educate and train teachers to access, comprehend and use educational technology effectively. E-learning must continue parallely with in-class education to help students and the education system attain global standards. Moreover, the ambit of The Right to Education Act, 2009, needs to be extended to include children below age six and above 14 years of age.
Adoption of these measures will raise teaching-learning standards across the spectrum from pre-primary to higher secondary, and better prepare students for higher education and career opportunities. Government, parents and educators need to collaboratively devise new strategies to resolve the long-standing problems and challenges confronting Indian education.
(Dr. Elisabeth Levi is vice president of linguistics, assessment and research at the Jerusalem-based speaknow)
[/userpro_private]
Add comment