• Friday, March 29, 2024

News

Pandemic will worsen India’s education inequalities: Experts

FILE PHOTO: Youths from Merry view Tea Garden organisation walk to attend a class as part of ‘Tuition for Rs 10’ project, origanized by Indian couple Anirban Nandy and Poulami Chaki Nandy for underprivileged students unable to assist online classes at Hatighisa village, some 26 km from Siliguri, on September 1, 2020, as schools remain closed due the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by DIPTENDU DUTTA/AFP via Getty Images)

By: Pramod Kumar

THE Covid-19 pandemic will exacerbate the already ‘extreme inequalities’ in access to education in India, experts have warned.

Schools have been shut for over a year in India, one of the longest shutdowns in the world. At 60 weeks and counting, only five other countries have seen schools shut for longer than India, affecting 320 million children, according to UNESCO.

Many families have sold belongings or taken out loans to buy smartphones for their children to continue their education.

In some rural areas, kids have been trekking miles up hills and through snake-infested jungles to try and connect to their teachers, reports said.

Jean Dreze, a welfare economist, said that the situation is bound to exacerbate ‘inequalities’ in access to education that reinforce India’s class, caste, and gender divisions.

“By and large, privileged children are able to continue learning through online education. For poor children, however, online education is a fiction, and no other arrangements have been made for them in most states,” said Dreze.

According to UNICEF, only one in four children in India has access to digital devices and the internet, and even before the pandemic, more than six million Indian girls and boys were already not going to school.

Almost 30 per cent of those who did go dropped out, with rates for girls and for children from the most marginalised communities higher still.

Worse situation

The pandemic and the heavy blow to the Indian economy — and to the poor who have suffered most of all — have only made things worse.

With breadwinners out of work, many families have had little choice but to make children drop their books to help make ends meet.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been an increase in child marriage — meaning one less mouth to feed — and trafficking too.

The fear is that many children will not return to education even when schools eventually reopen, creating a “lost generation” of unqualified young people.

“If they feel they cannot catch up, they’re less likely to go back to school,” said Terry Durnnian, chief of Education, UNICEF India.

Bablu Baghel in Agra — home to the Taj Mahal — saw his monthly income of 20,000 rupees ($270) all but dry up along with visitors to India’s top tourist attraction.

The taxi driver’s three children have to share his mobile phone to remotely attend their classes. He cannot afford to buy another device.

“This is all we have,” Baghel said, adding that mobile data charges — once the world’s cheapest — have soared, hiking the price of streaming lessons.

Related Stories

Loading