Children and Opening of Educational Institutions – Living with Pandemic

     

Introduction

The pandemic Covid-19 has spread over whole world and compelled the human society to maintain social distancing. It has significantly disrupted the education sector which is a critical determinant of a country’s economic future. According to the UNESCO report, it had affected more than 90% of total world’s student population during mid April 2020 which is now reduced to nearly 67% during June 2020. Outbreak of COVI-19 has impacted more than 120 crores of students and youths across the planet. In India, more than 32 crores of students have been affected by the various restrictions and the nationwide lockdown for COVI-19. As per the UNESCO report, about 14 crores of primary and 13 crores of secondary students are affected which are two mostly affected levels in India. Though it is an exceptional situation in the history of education, COVID provided an opportunity to come out of the rigorous classroom teaching model to a new era of digital model. But latter on all realized that the lockdown has taught so many lessons to manage with the emergence of such pandemics. Thus, COVID created many challenges and opportunities for the educational institutes to strengthen their infrastructure (Pravat, 2020a). The lockdown has given them a ray of hope for teachers and students to continue their educational activities through online.

With unlock of system and society as per advisories issued by Government of India now it is proposed to reopen the schools Reopening schools and universities will bring unquestionable benefits to students and the wider economy. In addition, reopening schools will bring economic benefits to families by enabling some parents to return to work. Those benefits, however, must be carefully weighed against the health risks and the requirement to mitigate the toll of the pandemic. Several steps can be taken to manage the risks related to school reopening, including physical distancing measures, establishing hygiene protocols, revising personnel and attendance policies, and investing in staff training on appropriate measures to cope with the virus. However, the challenges do not end with the immediate crisis. In particular, spending on education may be compromised in the coming years.

Therefore, keeping in view the vulnerability of area and exposure of untrained school children, it becomes imperative to have a discussion on safety measures to be adopted for school reopening. Education, public awareness, and proper training for enhancing the capacity is the cornerstone of approaches aimed at reducing vulnerabilities to natural hazards. I firmly believe that there is no natural disaster. Though our ineffectiveness and non-accountable system turn most of natural hazard into natural disaster. Keep schools closed it not an option. 67% population of India is residing in rural area . out of these 67% only 25% is having smart phone and internet connection through which online education can be imparted. What about those who left out? We are not doing injustice with those poor rural students? Are we not forcing them to join another poverty cycle?

Actually, we are hiding our non-performance behind the lockdown. We got enough time to reopen the schools, but we failed. Schools are very small units and I am sure risk in schools can be managed. Only determination is required which is certainly found absent in in this Covid 19.