Why we should re-open schools in India

A World Economic Forum report from some of the high income countries in Europe and Central Asia shows what we all know - Covid-19 has led to massive learning loss among students. This learning loss is now being called, ‘Covid Slide’ akin to the summer slide that occurs during summer vacation.

This covid slide is not only real but is also far more acute among children from disadvantaged families. Learning loss leads to long term challenges. Decreases in test scores, such as those seen with Covid slide, are associated with future declines in employment and incomes. 

If Covid Slides are so debilitating, why is our country not doing more to help our children? It is because Covid has revealed something that we hate to admit: We don’t care much for our children’s right to education. Look at the evidence:

What was the first thing the Govt re-opened in June? If education and the future of our children were important, we would have found ways to safely re-open schools. This would have been accompanied with detailed SOPs, staff training and confidence-building among parents. Instead, the powers that be, ascertained that parents, gripped with fear, were uncertain about sending children back to school. And there were only downsides to re-open schools. Since long-term effects don’t kick in within a 5 year election term, schools were conveniently relegated to the backwaters of political priority list. Political rallies, winning elections, re-opening of religious places, malls, gyms and worse, liquor shops, took precedence.

This would have been acceptable if the alternatives available to school re-opening were effective and widely available. 

1. Instead, we have had over 130 million students who go to Govt schools being completely deprived of any learning. We keep hearing of successes of Whatsapp, Postal resources, or loudspeakers but these are isolated glimmers of hope serving a few hundred or thousand amidst a sea of over hundred million deprived students. 
2. Affordable schools scampered to put together some form of whatsapp-zoom lessons but their efforts were thwarted. First, by Govts in different states banning online learning and then by parents who did not see value in online learning and therefore refused to pay fees for it.
3. High fee schools on the other hand, seamlessly moved to online live classes, supported by bandwidth and computers at home, and skilled teachers who after the initial blunders, settled into a nice rhythm

This situation has created a new caste system in Indian schools:

1. Children of rich parents attending good quality live classes from their International and high fee schools. Teachers in these schools have held onto their jobs and salaries.
2. Children in affordable schools sometimes attending, sometimes missing online classes. These students are caught between their parents’ intransigence on fee, their school’s limited means and an unhelpful Govt.  A high share of teachers have either lost their jobs or are living with reduced or delayed salaries. 
3. Children of Govt Schools are the most affected. They have hardly had any learning intervention and are caught in a cycle of apathy. Their teachers continue to earn their taxpayer-backed salaries. Govt. is happy playing the waiting game. Parents lack the means to find any alternatives.

The more the lockdowns continue, the more this inequity will become pronounced. There could be a crab-like tendency to stop all schools till all schools re-open (Karnataka tried this unsuccessfully) but that would bring down everyone to the lowest denominator. Instead, let us make it a priority for us as a nation to safely re-open our schools. And as we re-open, it will be good to pay heed to two points from the World Economic Forum report:

1. Plan for remedials and bridge courses to overcome the Covid slide.
2. Don’t go back to the old school. Re-imagine schools to be system-based so that they can weather any future shocks and lockdowns.

If we truly believe that children are our future, then we should safely re-open our schools. It is possible - it just requires political will, planning skill and confidence building among parents.