On March 18, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations issued a notification postponing the finals scheduled to be held between March 19 and March 31, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These examinations are the only way to get admitted into college for millions of students in India and abroad.
As one such student myself, the fact that this decision was taken a day after my examinations ended came as a relief. But, I cannot imagine, for the life of me, what those who were not as I must be feeling, stuck in complete uncertainty about what their future - especially academically- holds for them. That week my friends from outside the city frantically returned home, and many of those abroad are still stuck there, clueless as to when they will see their families again. In the midst of it all, it is impossible not to think about how the current pandemic is affecting the lives of students across the world.
According to UNESCO, as of April 17, there have been nationwide school and college closures in 191 countries, affecting 91.3% of the learners worldwide. In India alone, 320 million students have been affected. Given that schools usually serve as a safe space for children, and provide them a sense of normalcy when crises occur, these statistics are worrying, because the situation is sure to have an adverse effect on the mental health of students across the world.
What is equally as (if not more) worrying, however, is how we have decided to cope up with this crisis.
To ensure that academic progress isn’t hindered, educational institutions world over have decided to take up remote learning. Through platforms like Zoom and Google Classroom, students at home are still able to “attend classes”. With this, what was previously a privilege of access has now turned to the online world into a need.
It is only a small and privileged group of people that have access to such classes, especially in a country like India.
Social stratification strongly affects the quality and level of education that individuals have access to. With the current situation, the divide in quality of education received by those of different social strata is bound to get deepened and disproportionately affect marginalized groups- women, disabled students, children of migrant workers, students from the remote or economically strained strata of society, etc.
According to NSSO’s Survey on Education in India, Internet penetration in the country is extremely low: on a national average, only 27% of the students in India have access to the internet. It is particularly important to note that a strong rural-urban divide exists here: only 16% of the rural households are reported to have access to the internet, while in the urban regions, this number sits at 49%. In states like West Bengal and Bihar, most students are migrant students, but only 7% of them have any access to the internet in their hometown.
Millions are, therefore, entirely cut off from their education and have no access to any alternatives.
From what we know about dealing with pandemics in the past, we know that girls will be among those who are most strongly affected by these school closures. In Sierra Leone, a country hard hit by the Ebola crisis in 2014, adolescent pregnancy rose by 65%. Schools for them were a protective environment, and being forced to stay home has been revealed as a direct reason for this increase in adolescent pregnancy. Simultaneously, there was a significant rise in poverty caused by an interrupted education. In such conditions, women were not able to access proper healthcare, putting them at risk.
Women are also less likely to have access to the internet. India’s skewed sex ratio also finds a reflection in the way that individuals access the internet. A recent report by the GSMA revealed how Indian women are 62% less likely to have access to the online world. Given that, female students are less likely to be able to access the material, and therefore less likely to attain an education, leading to higher dropout rates.
Similarly, dropout rates may also increase for those belonging to the disabled community. While the government launched campaigns like ‘Accessible India’ and ‘Digital India’ in 2015, there weren’t any policies formed in order to support these campaigns and make technology more inclusive of the disabled community. The digital space for them is unfortunately still inaccessible. This means that while classes shift online, those who are special needs students are left behind.
In a country where around 50% of the disabled community is still uneducated, a loss of means to get any education at all (even for a short period) is going to negatively impact enrolment rates and dropout rates. They will invariably lose out on opportunities, their academic progress is bound to be hindered, and unfortunately, their already compromised status is bound to deteriorate further.
It is, however, not just the students who are suffering because of this sudden transition. Teachers are ill-equipped to deal with such transitions. Overnight, without any training, they have been asked to make their curriculum online, and are struggling to learn how to teach, again. Students report classes being canceled, delayed, and often incoherent because teachers are unable to grasp online methods of teaching and do not necessarily know the aids they can utilize to make the classes more enriching and engaging.
The solutions adopted to mitigate the effects of the pandemic on the education sector do not take into consideration the needs of the majority of students and have left many in the dark about what the future holds for them.
As revealed by the Survey on Education, among persons between ages 14-29 years, nearly 18% in rural areas and 49% in urban areas were able to operate a computer, which is another reason that there is a dire need to increase digital education in the country, and to integrate technology into all classrooms.
The government must diligently work towards bridging the digital divide - be it because of gender or socio-economic class - to ensure that the country (and especially, the education sector) is better equipped to handle crises. The need to make education inclusive is more apparent now, than ever before and must be a priority for the proposed National Education Policy.
The pandemic has revealed the inability of the education sector to cope with sudden crises. Climate change is bound to increase the occurrence of infectious diseases, and so, while this may be the first disease outbreak to affect the continuity of education, it is surely not the last. What is extremely necessary now is that as the National Education Policy goes back for changes, is updated to ensure that schools are better equipped to handle such crises, and that the steps taken to do so are more inclusive of the marginalized communities.