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| Covid-19 impact on student’s life | | | SAJIDA PARVEEN
The no of covid cases across the country are rising exponentially day by day even now. The longer the crisis continues, the worse it is going to impact the economy until now, it has been estimated that it would make a difference of 8.5 trillion dollars on the world economy over the next 2 years due to this crisis. A huge sector which has been impacted greatly by it is the education sector. Students in our country have been demanding the cancellation of exams. Online classes have commenced in some places and some exams have already been cancelled. Parents are demanding that the private schools should not hike their fees. Schools on the other hand, say that they donot have money to pay the staff and teachers. Let us analyze what the impacts of covid-19 on education are and what steps are being taken to mitigate it.
As of 20th June 2020, The Data of UNESCO has revealed that there have been nation wide closures of schools and colleges in more than 114 countries all across the world which has affected more than 1 billion students. There are very few countries in the world where the school were not shut down for example Australia, Sweden and greenland. In context of India, more than 32 crore students have been affected by this. Some schools stopped teaching entirely while other resorted to online class. For people like us,online classes are a great solution in the short term. But it also creates a digital divide. It is alright for people like us, who can watch youtube and can avail the availability of the Internet. But what about people that donot have internet available to them. There are only 2 states in India which have more than 40% rural household with internet availability. In the rest of the states, only 10-20% rural household have internet. So what would these people do ? They cannot attend online class. The problem further exacerbates when we realise that several families out of these ran their daily affairs through day to day earnings. They have lost their livelihood after the lockdown. So many people have been pushed into poverty due to economic impact of covid-19. Think about what such families would do. Neither would they have money to send their children to school nor they want their children to go to work to bring some money home. The 2017 -18 NSSO data shows that boys in villages drop out of school midway. The top 2 reasons behind this are financial constraints in their families and economic work. These 2 reasons would be applicable here as well as in the covid-19 situation. This means that when the school reopens the children in families like these will not go back to school. They would be pushed into child labour due to these problems. This is a long term problem that would be created but not a lot of people are talking about it.
Fees hike issue
The second issue is school fees hike issue. Nowdays, the students are already under of stress. Stressful situation for parents are being created as well. Some private schools in our country are not conducting any online classes but they are still charging fees from the parents. Some private schools are only holding online classes and charging fees despite this and in some places fees are being hiked which is a huge issue for the parents because we already know what the economic situation in the entire country is. Acc to 2014 NSSO data for a common family in our country, by a common family it is meant -a husband, a wife and two school going kids. 20% of thier entire annual household income is spent on the education of the children. This is why, several parents have even approached the supreme court for a moratorium on the fees hike. Some state govt like that of Delhi, Assam and Maharashtra have already taken action against it. In Maharashtra, it has been declared that no private school can hike fees this year or else they would have to face penalty. In response to this, several private schools say that they need the money to pay their teachers and their staff.
Stress for students
From the perspective of the students the last few months have been extremely stressful. Repeated postponement and cancellation of exams as well as the reigning uncertainty. No clarity about the cancellation of exams or when the exams would be held instead what grading system would be used and whether it would be beneficial for students or not. Constant online classes for 5-6 days prolonged exposure to the screens with headphones on is not an ideal scenario. It is extremely stressful and leads to increase in anxiety and depression. And in the extreme cases, students have also committed suicide .In one case, the class 9th student did not have access to either a smartphone or a TV or she was unable to attend online classes due to which she committed suicide. Furthermore, the absence of any kind of physical education and exercise exerts a very negative impact on the health of the student. Eating habits and sleeping cycles deteriorate and the constant online classes require them to sit all the time. Online classes are not even a short time solution for the primary school kids because social emotional bonding and contact with people and teachers is necessary for such young children for the development of the child. Due to these negative impacts several countries took the decision of reopening their schools for eg:- School in Denmark was reopened with precautions whilst maintaining physical distancing. This is something that would be need to be evaluted in India in the coming month. Is it better to reopen schools ? What would have lesser negative consequences-reopening them or keeping them shut? We would have evalute which option is lesser harmful.
Exam Cancellation
Talking about the exams, several universities across the world took the decision of holding open book exams. That is ,we would sit in the front of the computer to give exams and you can use the internet or any book while writing the exam and this is a good step becoz the questions in the open book exams basically force the student to think critically. It would cause them to think and answer. The questions are not that the simple that you can rote learn and write their answers. Some exam in India have been cancelled completely like the CBSE, ICSE, JKBOSE board exams of class 10th and 12th. The students have been demanding the cancellation or postponement of these exams since a long time. This has finally done. But it has created some new problems. The students allege that the evaluation criteria is unfair. Similarly the JEE and NEE have also been postponed. The news is not great from the perspective of the teachers either. Reports are pouring in from places that teachers have been fired from their jobs in private schools. The teachers are complaining that online classes are increasing inequality between the students which is not good and some teachers are not even being paid salaries from the school. Talking of solution, there is very clear cut solution of one issue. It is very important for the government to regulate the fees hike of the private schools. Till date, 15 states have made legislations in paper to regulate the fees hike of the private schools. But parents are involved in the school boards only in 4 states in India where the fees hike can be regulated. It is important to make a parent teacher association and grant them decision making powers. So they can regulate the fees hike. If it is in the hands of the parents, then it can be controlled and implemented better. The rest of the states should also follow this lead. |
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