Education amid COVID -19 pandemic

The pandemic, COVID -19, has affected hundreds of countries and brought lives to standstill. It has forced people to remain confined to houses. Roads are deserted. Streets are empty. Children are out of school. This is a critical challenging time for countrymen and survival of human beings at large.

Only essential services are available. Schools, colleges, universities and educational institutions are missing in the list. More than a million schools are closed, students are restricted to homes, parents are struggling to engage them while teachers are being advised to chalk out feasible online strategies that are suitable to address learning needs of children.

Education, the lifeline for children, is of pivotal importance. It works to protect them in prevailing situation of natural disaster and preserve their right to education. Education is more than a right to learn.

Despite humungous benefits to children and society, education is often the first service that falls prey to suspension and last one to be restored. This calls for revisit the policy and implementation and determined efforts so that education of children remains intact and unaffected regardless of circumstances.

There is need to mitigate against the possible negative impact on learning of children and their wellbeing. This necessitates concrete realistic plan in place to ensure the continuity of learning. This may include learning options like online education strategies, development of content which are easy, less than complication to conceptualize and understand and facilitate learning. The lucid content may be divulged through broadcast, telecast and available online platforms and services accessible to children.

Teachers and teacher educators can play active role in this process by carrying on the implementation in close contact with children in a possible manner, may be by using even basic mobile phones.

Also, children need to be informed in order to encourage them to remain protected and act as advocates for disease prevention and control at their homes.

This reminds that education service need a big push. A larger spend is required. It is not merely a matter of funding. Innovative strategies should be pursued for combining an array of resources available to have the biggest possible impact in the ways that are affordable and offer hindrance free accessibility in this pandemic situation.

Ravindra Kumar Mishra,

Former Chief Consultant,

MHRD, Guwahati