By Vijay Garg
After the historic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, most schools are back open worldwide but education is still in recovery assessing the damage done and lessons learned. The pandemic affected more than 1.5 billion students and youth with the most vulnerable learners were hit hardest.
With the aim of universalizing free and compulsory elementary education for all, India’s Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009, holds local authorities responsible for maintaining a record of children (up to the age of 14 years) residing in their jurisdiction, to ensure that they are enrolled in schools, attending the same, and thereby on their way to completing their elementary education. Despite vast improvements made since then by the country towards achieving this goal, we know that in India a large number of children continue to be out of school, the explanation for which can be traced to various multi-dimensional factors, including poverty, disability, poor health, child marriage, child labour, migration, discrimination, and so on.
The pandemic has only exacerbate challenges faced by children in accessing education. The pandemic disruption has had a significant impact on schooling across the world, with the United Nations having estimated that 24 million learners (from the pre-primary to university level) may never return to school, globally. Many efforts were made during this period to document the experiences of parents and children in accessing schooling in India, across geographies and communities, and by various organizations. However, we still lack a clear picture on the status of out-of-school children in the aftermath of the pandemic in India.
The Delhi-based Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy recently released a report that synthesizes evidence on out-of-school children in the country from across different state and non-state sources. This compilation of Covid-specific surveys conducted from April 2020 to June 2022 found that the proportion of children who were not enrolled in a school, or had dropped out, ranged from 1.3% to 43.5%. This vast range was explained by the period, geography, and/or groups of households surveyed. Beyond enrolment, we know that prolonged absenteeism can cause long-term adversities for children’s learning and their retention in schools. India, notably, saw one of the longest periods of school closures during the pandemic, compared to other countries in the world. They lasted almost two years.
During this time, absenteeism was largely a function of inaccessibility to digital devices or the internet. Across compiled studies and surveys, inaccessibility of devices ranged from 10% to 97%, while inaccessibility of internet connectivity as a means to participate in online classes ranged similarly from 11% to 91%. Further, the proportion of children who ‘did not receive any online education’ ranged from 10% to 60%, with one study reporting that 43% of students had not accessed any online education for a period of up to 19 months (since the start of pandemic in March 2020).
As we try to recuperate from nearly 24 months of school closures and strive to bring children back to school, it is crucial we understand who have been left vulnerable to dropping out of or being absent from school for prolonged periods of time—and why. One can only hope that making sense of ‘why’ will help the governments minimize the challenges faced in accessing education in times of crisis.
Vijay Garg is a Retired Principal Educational Columnist Malout Punjab
