Reopening Schools | Reform education and change the outlook towards schools

Representative image

The question of the when and how to restart in-person classes in schools across India is complicated by a set of uncertainties. On the one hand, no country, with the virus spreading at India’s levels, has re-opened schools. On the other, we are already starting to witness the negative effects of prolonged school closures on children’s learning, beyond academics.

To add to that is the World Health Organization’s acknowledgement of the virus being airborne in indoor spaces with poor ventilation — a fact that doesn’t bode well for schools — many of which fit that description.

Yet, as fraught and complicated the question of school reopening is, it needs to be discussed. Around the world, countries have been experimenting with measures such as enforcing staggered attendance, outdoor classes and social distancing in classrooms to re-open schools.

Interacting with teachers, Union HRD minister Ramesh Pokhriyal suggested that the NCERT was in the process of drafting similar guidelines, with a focus on spaced out seating arrangements, enforcing staggered attendance and rules for following strict social distancing norms.

However, before finalising the guidelines, a key factor that needs to be taken into account is the feasibility of enforcing social distancing in a majority of schools, and whether schools are equipped to implement such measures in the first place.

Reality Check

The data, on the same, doesn’t inspire much confidence. Take for example, something as basic as hand washing, an exercise prescribed by experts since the pandemic began. Re-opening schools will require students undertake this activity frequently; yet data shows that only 45 percent schools have any hand washing facility.

While the implementation of Swachh Bharat Mission has meant that 93 percent schools have access to toilets, and 87 percent have drinking water facilities, WASH facilities (which includes drinking water, functional toilets and hand wash) exist in 52 percent of the schools.

To enforce social distancing between students, schools will require adequate infrastructure — something that’s out of question for 53,333 schools that operate out of a single classroom. A majority (49,250) of these are located in rural areas. Overcrowding still continues to be a major issue in schools even in urban areas, with classes of 80 and even 100 students a common occurrence.

In the absence of classrooms, schools can conduct outdoor classes, but that requires them to have playgrounds — unavailable in nearly half of the government primary schools and unrecognised schools. In fact, state-level data suggests that 11 states — Andhra Pradesh, Daman and Diu, West Bengal, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Bihar, Goa, Jharkhand, and Jammu and Kashmir — have less than 40 percent schools with playground. In Jharkhand, 70 percent schools do not have the facility.

Teacher Vacancy

The prospect of holding classes in shifts also comes with its own set of issues. For starters, conducting such classes requires extra teaching time to be invested in them — something that can happen either by teachers working overtime, or new teachers being hired. However, teachers are already overworked.

Currently, India has 108,017 schools that are run by single teachers. The pupil- teacher ratio in many schools is also pretty dismal, with 44.37 percent of schools in Bihar, 20.93 percent in Jharkhand and 19.60 percent in Uttar Pradesh reporting more than 50 students to a teacher per class.

This, even as 900,316 government teacher posts lie vacant at the elementary level, and 107,689 posts at the secondary school level need to be filled.

If there is a community that perhaps stands at a higher risk of infection than the students themselves — it’s the teachers. This risk is even starker considering a large number of our teachers — nearly 600,000 — are older than 55 years, and vulnerable to COVID-19. For example, in Uttar Pradesh, 67 percent of government school teachers are older than 55.

In schools, options to maintain social distancing among teachers are next to non-existent, with most teachers only having a single staff room, and only 55 percent schools having an additional room for the principal.

It’s Easy To Close

To be clear, many of these systemic flaws have existed for long, but the pandemic has compounded these vulnerabilities — revealing not just the fragility of the system, but also the urgent need to fix it. This requires taking steps to fill the shortages in the system by boosting investment in education. (Currently, India spends only 2.8 percent of its GDP on education.) However, to get to that, we require something more fundamental — a bit of imagination and a shift in the way we view schooling.

Instead of thinking of solutions, or proactively dealing with the issue, the government, so far, has chosen to take the easy road — continuing to defer school re-opening to a ‘safer’ date in the future. The approach reflects our overall view of education — it is considered important, but not essential — or at least not essential enough to warrant reforms like the ones we saw happening in the agricultural sector, or even urgent thought, as we saw with re-opening of liquor vends around the country.

We continue to view the question of school closures through one lens — physical safety, equating this safety with home. Yes, physical safety matters, but as experts point out, when children lose out on education, they lose out on much more than physical classes. They lose out on social and mental support, future opportunities including economic benefits, and sometimes access to education for life, with far-reaching consequences.

The ‘when’ of reopening schools matters, but it is also equally important to think about the ‘why’. If the ‘why’ involves opening schools to catch up with a syllabus, or to hold classes, then chances are, we may miss the important steps that we need to reform education.

Looking at the whole picture is necessary. Schools aren’t just places where children go and spend time. They are the bedrock of our society. If schools are unavailable, families cannot operate, cities cannot function, countries cannot move ahead.

The longer schools stay closed, the higher the cost to our society.

Shikha Sharma is a New Delhi-based independent journalist and photographer. Twitter: @ShikhaSharma304. Views are personal.