CII Summit| 'Special attention should be given to education and social security'

A study found that closure of a school for four months leads to a two-year reduction in learning outcomes

While rebuilding the economy after the pandemic, India should focus on inclusive growth, said panelists at a CII Summit.

They said special attention should be paid to the education sector and social security. 

"As we rebuild economies, the focus should be on inclusive growth in addition to high growth," said Kris Gopalakrishnan, former president of CII, co-founder of Infosys Limited and Chairman, Axilor Ventures Private Limited.

“Children who have lost out on education need to catch up. As countries plan to make up for losses, they must also minimise disruption,” he said.

Gopalakrishnan added that social security must be assigned greater significance, especially since 90 percent of the country’s workforce is in the unorganised sector.

His views were supported by Karthik Muralidharan, Tata Chancellor's Professor of Economics at University of California-San Diego, who was also speaking at the industry dialogue session, at the CII Global Economic Policy Summit 2021.

Muralidharan said, "The pandemic has been especially bad for children. The trade-off between the cost of shutting schools and potential benefits of reduced infection is very different for students from different socio-economic strata."

He elaborated by saying that, for students who have access to online devices and educated parents, the loss of learning is significantly lower that students who have access to neither and have been out of school for over a year.

School reopening poorly timed

Citing a study conducted in Pakistan, Murlidharan said that closure of a school for four months leads to a two-year reduction in learning outcomes.

He said, "I think we delayed opening schools well below what was optimal. Of course, the second wave was devastating but even in July or August we started opening malls or movie theaters before we opened up schools which I think was a mistake."

Murliadharan further noted that politicians cannot be blamed for such a situation as the population is risk averse.

"So this was one incredibly difficult situation where, as a society, we needed to have taken the call that though there will be an elevated risk, the unseen cost of school closures is going to be much more monumental," he added.