The present Covid-19 pandemic is a global and unprecedented human catastrophe affecting every sphere of life, including economic, social, political, and most importantly education. The rapid transmission has upended the daily life very quickly and in a way never seen before. In India, with the announcement of lockdown, educational institutions have been closed. This sudden and unprecedented lockdown has posed many parallel challenges to the students and their parents.
Educational institutions across the world are adopting the online teaching mode to bridge the gap and to compensate the huge deficit in instruction hours. According to an estimate of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO 2020), 320 million learners enrolled in primary, secondary or tertiary education are affected owing to disruption of unplanned lockdown.
As per estimates using the most recently released National Sample Survey (NSS, 2017-18, 75th round) data on social consumption on education, about 72 per cent students are living in rural area and only 60 per cent are attending Government schools. However, a greater degree of “digital divide” in terms of availability, accessibility and usability among the households is prevalent in India. Only 9 per cent of the households have access to both computer (i.e. devices, such as laptop, desktop computer, notebook, tablet, palmtop or a similar handheld device) and internet.
Further, this is acute in the disaggregated level such as across the Indian States, between rural-urban population, among different socio-religious and economic classes. This is 4 per cent in Bihar, 3.8 per cent in Odisha, 3 per cent in Jharkhand, and 4 per cent in Madhya Pradesh. They are at the bottom while Delhi (35%), Goa (25%), Kerala, Nagaland and Mizoram (21% each) are the best performer in terms of household’s access to computer and internet. Only 4 per cent rural households have access to digital infrastructure compared to 20 per cent in urban areas.
Students from socio-economically marginalised communities such as STs, SCs and poorer sections of the society suffered the most due to the present crisis because they have disproportionally low access and ability to use the digital devices. Hence, these already deprived sections have been eventually lagging behind and adding themselves to the existing socio-economic divide in India. We find that only 3.7 per cent, 4.2 per cent and 1.6 per cent of STs, SCs and lowest income group households respectively have access to digital devices and internet. The girls bear the brunt of the pandemic due to their additional burden of households’ chores given the existing problems of higher son preference in Indian society and their higher school’s dropout rate. This has connection with increased child labour, child marriage, early pregnancies and a plethora of other developmental issues. These have adverse life-long and intergenerational impacts on educational attainment, health and nutritional outcome.
Apart from other environmental and contextual factors like access to improved water and sanitation, regular and nutritious food in adequate quantity is prerequisites for harmonious development of children. Children with better nutritional outcome perform better in educational achievement and other non-cognitive activities. According to most recently released (on December 12, 2020) National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-20 factsheet for 22 States and UTs, the under-five child malnutrition has increased in majority of the States during the period 2015-16 to 2019-20. The Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS, 2016-18) provides information exclusively on nutritional status of school-age children. Using CNNS-2020 we estimated that 23 per cent and 22 per cent school-age (5-10 years) children are thin and stunted, respectively.
Covid-19 has disrupted the food availability and social protection system and has given rise to food insecurity across the globe. The World Food Programme (WFP, 2020) projected that the number of people facing food insecurity will be doubled globally due to Covid-19 by the end of 2020. Unfortunately, Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2020 ranked India 94 out of 107 countries which come under serious hunger situation. India’s position is below Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
The unplanned lockdown and the closure of schools have led to non-continuation of regular feeding to the schoolchildren through the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) scheme. This scheme is the largest school feeding and supplementary nutrition programme in the world, feeding approximately 100 million children and most of them are from marginalised communities attending Government schools up to Class VIII. Thus, school closure poses additional shocks to the families and their children having already affected with food insufficiency and nutritional deficiency. Apart from eliminating hunger, the MDM scheme also addresses other health related issues of micronutrient deficiency and deworming which has significant positive effect on school enrolment, attendance, learning outcome, retention, and gender and social equity.
The lockdown has also hit the umbrella Integrated Child Development Services scheme that has affected the children as well as the pregnant and lactating mothers.
The current Covid-19 crisis is a major setback in India’s progress toward the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), i.e. universal and equitable education, good health and well-being; and zero-hunger. We can find a more precarious future disparity in child health and nutrition and knowledge-gap among haves and have-nots. Children from disadvantaged sections are left in limbo in multiple ways due to their resource constrained capabilities.
It was expected but unfortunately no special attention has been given to address these disruptions from the Central Government’s $250 billion “Aatmanirbhar Bharat Package”. Some States implement home delivery of meals/dry ration to students but there remains much more scope for such initiatives. Strengthening the digital infrastructure via provisioning of digital devices (mobile, tablet, computer, etc.) for the needy-learners and making internet and broadband or Wi-Fi services as universal public goods while synergising panchayats and harnessing the capabilities of the community could be other options to narrow down the socio-economic and digital divide in India. Any negligence in this regard would have serious consequences on children’s education and health outcome in future. In the time of present crisis, direct interventions, social protection, and universalisation of food safety programmes, i.e. PDS in India are urgently needed. For a long-term sustainable solution to malnutrition problem, apart from other contextual factors we need to recognise the agriculture and nutrition linkages and should promote diversified local food and nutrition sensitive agriculture production with proper procurement and distribution policy.
(Pratap C Mohanty teaches at Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee, and Mukesh Kumar is a senior PhD Fellow at the same department)
