The Impact of COVID-19 on School Education & The Path to Recovery

COVID-19 has caused a devastating impact on almost every sect & section of the society on the earth. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it “a global pandemic” seeing worst impact of it on human health and world economy. Shutting down the international and domestic travelling and locking down the people in their homes was recognized as the only way to control the spread the ever changing Corona Virus. During the lockdown, multiple issues related to social, educational, economical, political, agricultural, psychological levels and many more have been noticed in global societies, which have created the devastating impact on the lives of the people.

The impact of COVID-19 on education has been harsh and its consequences will be seen in coming days. The pandemic forced schools and educational institutions to shut down and as per reports, around 25 crore students were badly affected due to school closure globally during the lockdown period. The pandemic posed several challenges in public and private schools which included a high rise in dropouts, learning losses, closure of many private schools and increase in digital divide. The pandemic also raised a question mark on preparedness of the school education system including teachers training for such conditions. It is assumed that the impact of school closures will have lifelong impact on the productivity of this generation of students. Children being out of the school for about two years will have greater impact on their learning capacity & outcomes.

Lockdowns during COVID-19 have interrupted traditional schooling for about 2 years globally including India except a few countries like Iceland & Sweden, where primary and lower secondary education remained open with some restrictions. Although government and educational community have made concerted efforts to maintain learning continuity during the pandemic period but students had to rely more on their own resources to continue learning through the internet, television and radio. Teachers also had to adapt new pedagogical concepts and modes of delivering of teaching for which they were not trained. Students from marginalized and under privileged groups, who hadn’t access to digital devices for learning by own, were at risk and lagged behind. Students were promoted without quality assessment and formal examinations. Many students were struggling to get passing marks even after reduction of 25-30 percent syllabus in curriculum. Instructional time in online learning mode reduced also in comparison with instructional time being used in offline school system and practical & lab activities affected badly. Learning loss of students in this situation resulted in skills loss and the efficiency & productivity of such students declined. These students may face difficulty in preparation of competitive examinations or pursuing their higher education as the syllabus for these competitive exams were not reduced and they may find themselves in difficult situations while applying for job or they may funneled out by employers.

Teachers who are well versed in chalk & talk method, Blackboard and book based classroom teaching, were really new to this digital teaching and trying hard to adopt and handling new ICT enabled methods of teaching to ensure teaching-learning during the pandemic time to aid students and engage them in constructive manner and keep them away from stress and disconnection with academic activities. But on the other hand, many teachers associated with private schools had lost their jobs or faced heavy cut in salaries and perks. Many among them were forced to search an alternative job to support their families.

Educated parents were supporting their children throughout the pandemic, but most of the illiterate and marginalized parents especially in rural areas were feeling of helplessness to help their children in their education.

There are many parents in India who send their children to school so that they can get sufficient food for survival under Mid Day Meal scheme. This scheme has helped many children who couldn’t bring their food from the home to get their nutrition. Dropout cases rapidly increased during pandemic period as most of the school-going children from economically weaker section were involved in child labour to support their families. Parents from these section are mostly unwilling to send their girl child to the school as they see it impractical and financial burden in doing so. This pandemic has not only affected the students but also the low-budget schools and institutions also, resulting in close-down the same. Parents denied fees to these school in mass during pandemic period due to closure of schools,  ineffective online teaching  and inability to join online classes due to lack of digital devices & internet connectivity. Many parents from middle and upper middle class also denied paying fees in various heads which resulted in failure of even many big schools and institutions build on bank loan facility to run because of inability of paying installment against loan taken for building school infrastructure, arranging digital & smart classes and buying busses.

The COVID-19 impact was both positive and negative happening around us. Educational Technology paves the way for virtual education and expansion of educational reach, thus helping the students and teachers to connect one another virtually through online classrooms, webinars, digital exams, and so on. The government also got opportunity to bring desired changes in existing education system during pandemic what the government was trying hard to implement from past many years. The New Education Policy (NEP)-2020 and subsequent initiatives such as National Digital Education Architecture (NDEAR) and National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy (NIPUN Bharat) came into being during the pandemic. Government started many TV channels like SWAYAMPRABHA and Radio Channels like GYANVANI for broadcasting video and audio lessons of all classes and subjects to reach out students having no electronic gadgets. Web portals/Applications like NISHTHA were also widely used for study and training purpose of students and teachers.

Students from privileged class with their parent’s support and eagerness had an alternative opportunity to use private digital learning platforms full of educational contents, to gain knowledge at their own pace and by real time lessons led by their teachers using virtual meeting platforms. These online learning platforms became very popular during pandemic and now it has turned into parallel to the educational institutions. Although students from disadvantaged groups remained out from their schooling which widened “Digital Devide” and need to be removed with immediate initiatives and active support from government. Thus, a variety of resources were used for virtual and distance learning to support students who were unable to come to school during pandemic, including pdf files of textbooks, printouts of notes & worksheets and live worksheets, Radio and TV education & real time instructional platforms etc. but mostly schools and students used real-time online platforms for their study like Google Meet, Microsoft Team, Zoom, Cisco-Webex etc.

Government & educational institutions worked hard to develop training portals like DIKSHA and online training modules to train teachers and provide support for digital learning. Such efforts enabled teachers and students to access specialized learning materials in multiple formats beyond textbooks. Similarly simulation based virtual laboratories like O-Labs etc gave students opportunity to design, conduct and learn from virtual experiments. Further, Portal like VIDYANJALI provided opportunity to all teachers, parents or any other stakeholders to contribute in creating digital learning materials for students. Such platforms helped teachers and all other stakeholders to work as co-creators of knowledge, coaches, mentors and evaluators.

PM CARES fund are being used by Government of India to support education of children who lost their families in pandemic period. All academic expenditures of such students will be borne by government. But this is not sufficient to bring back the disfigured education system on track due to COVID-19.  Government must increase it’s budget elocution on Education and utilize public funds to provide equal opportunity of education to all citizens. Education and Public Healthcare is an area in which government intervention to public fund, direction or regulation of provision of these services are must so that government can ensure that education is not beyond the reach of some peoples of society as there is no guarantee that market will provide equal access to education to all. Government should release a relief package for educational sector and provide electronic gadgets and financial assistance to students for paying fees and buying books & notebooks. Funds must be released to equip schools with digital platform and tools for ICT enabled learning. Government should also try to regulate prices of Books, Notebooks, and Stationery etc. to make these affordable to all parents. Government should also provide relief to parents by wavering interest on educational loans taken for studies during the pandemic period and Scholarship should be given to meritorious and needy students.

Everything is done for the well-being of the students so that they can stay safe at home and keep learning without getting affected by the life threatening Corona virus. Though we were not ready to face such situations, but with continuous effort of teacher’s fraternity and government support, we succeeded in providing flawless education to students even during pandemic period.  Now we have entered in the recovery phases of COVID-19, we need to critically evaluate our existing education system and bring revolutionary changes in it. It seems that the present government is taking all possible steps to overhaul and reconstruct existing education system as per need of the time. The New Education Policy -2020 aims at building a global best education system rooted in Indian ethos and transforming India into a global knowledge superpower in coming days.

Written by :

Ambrish Kumar Gupta

Principal

Kendriya Vidyalaya Rajkot. Gujarat.

Email- akgkvs@gmail.com

Education- M.A. in Ancient Indian History & Archaeology, B.ED.

NET Qualified in History, Archaeology, Indian Culture.