The announcement of lockdown has changed the course of education and the process to achieve its objectives. The transition in the process and methodology of teaching has left many students behind. What then are the challenges of the virtual education system and who is getting affected the most from this transition and what can be the short and long term challenges and consequences of mandatory classroom shutdowns and how these consequences should be tackled?
Importance Of Classroom Education
Educational institutions are using different methods to teach students. But this can never fulfil 100% of requirements, as schools don’t only teach children, they do much more than that. They also provide nutrition, safety, social and psychosocial support to children, inculcate the habit of socializing, and generate social ethics.
As students spend a long time at school, this reduces the risks of child labour, physical and sexual abuse, especially in case of girls. There is no complete solution to this but schools should become more aware and scrutinize the activities while teaching or interacting with children and counsel parents/guardians from time to time.
Marginalized Girls Are The Worst Affected
Girls under such circumstances seem to take more household duties and face an increased risk of getting victimized by the increasing social exploitation or even worse, sexual abuse, violence at homes, and rape. Post-crisis, it will lead to even lesser numbers of girls reaching schools. Detrimental patriarchal norms may give girls less advantage of distance/online education.
Government and education ministry should create some policies for schools and other educational institutes to keep a watch and ensure flexible schedules, time to time sensitization, and monitor access to girl students and report if any harmful actions come to light.
Preparation For High Stake Examinations
All the colleges and coaching institutes have been closed and many students belonging to rural areas have returned to their homes. They are not getting the benefits of online classes because of the non availability of high-speed internet that is the foremost requirement to take advantage of online classes going on.
This will reduce the preparation time for students and increase the pressure on them, this will only dispirit rural families to invest time and money to send their children to cities for coaching and other educational purposes. The only support students can get is more resources of teaching such as pre-recorded videos and test series, and offline apps by the institutes.
Unequal Access To Online Education
Lack of access to technology, internet or presence of disability, etc. is a big hindrance for students who want to get the advantage of online education. This problem is further compounded when the choice is between spending money to educate a girl or boy. In response to this, distance learning programs should be included which consists of typed/recorded offline content. Institutes should support the disadvantaged learners by providing them with customized digital assistive tools according to the requirement which will make the future process easy.
Government Schools
Government schools are more at burden because they are not able to shift their procedures online due to no access to e-learning solutions as a result complete shutdown of classes took place. Students do rely on government schools not only for education but for daily nutritive diet as well. Mid-day meals of crores of students have been discontinued which is resulting in poor nutrition and decreased health status. Girls are already overlooked when it comes to nutrition, not getting a meal a day can put their health at risk. In this condition school, authorities should plan and prepare meals for the enrolled students in the most affected areas. At the same time, basic study material and resources should be delivered to maintain the continuity.
What About Vulnerable Children?
Once the schools will be reopened, there are high chances that children from the poorest families will never join back. The shutdown has caused economic hardships to many families, job losses in massive amounts, small business closures have left many families without a constant income. Migrants are going back to their hometowns, the reason being the absence of money to pay rents and buy food, online education is something they can’t even think of.
Children who were studying in the schools of these cities have migrated along with their families and possibly won’t even join back ever in any school of the city because more than half the number of families will not return until years.
It is a big challenge to bring back children to school because economic instability has generated pressure on children to work and contribute their earnings for their financially distressed families. This will increase the heights of child labour, violence on children especially those who are most vulnerable and marginalized.
The government will need to attract these students to join back by opening more schools with a better education in rural areas providing more benefits than before.
To conclude, compromises come with changes especially when the change is rapid and unplanned. Severe consequences can be seen with a large population of children in the absence of classroom education. But, what has been done is for the good for all and each solution doesn’t come with complete alternatives. Though, efforts can and should be made to benefit each child because children are our future and these pure hearts should not suffer.