With the closure of schools and suspension of academic under the national lockdown due to Covid-19, children are experiencing miraculous psychological impact. Primary education is a fundamental learning which requires close counselling and physical classes as children below 14 years lack perceptional capacity. Children above 14 years can be imparted education by any mode, as grown up students are capable to some extent to tap digital potential for learning.
It is very easy to say about imparting online classes but in a country like India where phone services including internet in many rural and tribal area is not available or in fluctuating condition or not catching signals, such e-education would be meaningless for many. Besides, 60 percent of parents may not have smart phones or working knowledge about internet. Large numbers of students come from poor and middle class families most of whom may not have a computer. Some people may have mobile facility but without internet service. Even official figure of internet holders may not exceed 20-30 percent. Online teaching in places like Delhi, Mumbai and other cities may be feasible as large infrastructure are available which are hardly found in remote areas and tribal pockets.
I had the experience of facing a problem of connectivity during Titili cyclone in Gajapati district. When it was required to pass a message, the mobile holder had to climb a small mango tree to receive signal. Restoring primary education is the urgent need for which the Governments, the society and parents must ponder over to lunch appropriate strategies so that the situation does not lead to any drop out in rural and tribal areas. Education in non hotspots can be restored and in hot spots, the Governments should come up with some practical solution for carrying academic activities for students in primary classes from nursery to class 7.
Migrant returnees
According to some estimates, many children of around 200 million migrant labourers who were going to schools at work places of their parents are the worst sufferers. Parents of such children lost their job and also their shelters for being unable to meet their day to day needs. The situation is horrendous for the children of the migrants for which concentrated effort is necessary to help these children at their new places. They also might not have carried school leaving certificates from their earlier schools because of the lockdown. Due to influx of migrants to their native places the existing capacity of the schools may not accommodate the pressure of the newcomers. The Government should facilitate special camps in villages to undertake classes in small groups, adhering to social distance and other precautions.
It may require dividing each class into small multiple groups for holding physical teaching which would require more manpower for teaching and for up-keeping safety and sanitation needs. In addition to regular teachers, teacher-volunteers can be recruited on contract basis for the entire current academic session/as per need would require policy decentralisation to empower gram panchayats, blocks to recruit such teacher- volunteers on a war footing from among the native graduates on the basis of highest marks in subjects like regional language, English and Math to aid and assist regular teachers. If trained or retired teachers are available in the localities, it would be excellent.
Schools can be run on the basis of time slot dedicating one hour to each class from Classes-1 to 7 in between 7 am to 5 pm with half an hour break between two classes, by forming groups, each with 20 students.
As many unemployed graduates are available in most of the GPs or blocks, recruiting volunteer teachers on the above parameters to assist and aid the regular teachers can be taken up by the blocks and GPs. The Odisha Government has given Collector power to GP heads and their functioning is overall good. A minor lapse here and there is an everywhere phenomenon which could be tackled by putting appropriate check and balance. Empowering grassroots administrators like GPs is the need of the hour to make the villages self reliant. Let the trust on GPs be strengthened.
Additionally, it may be considered by the Government of India to dedicate 3 DD channels one for primary, another for secondary and the third one for higher education to compliment physical education in the primary sector.
Role of Centre
Education under the Constitution is a concurrent subject. It is time that that the Union Government should call a meeting of State Education Ministers, teaching experts and prominent NGOs working in the field to decide on a uniform standard operating procedure on running primary and secondary academic. This is an unprecedented national crisis and requires nationally uniform policy for the entire nation on warfooting to meet emerging challenges. Right to education is a fundamental right under the RTE Act, 2009 which mandates to the States to ensure free education to all children aged between 6 and 14 years. This casts specific responsibilities on the Centre, States and local bodies. The States lack financial resources to meet the challenges as they lost many avenues of taxation under GST. The Central Government had committed in 2010 to share expenses under this head. In the national interest the Center must play a historic role of extending major financial assistance to States to achieve constitutional objective of right to education and accelerate the process in this hour of crisis.
(The writer is a former Assembly Deputy Speaker, Ph: 9437412877, E-mail: pandarcp@gmail.com.)