– Amrita Ghosh
India, like most of the world, is in the throes of a pandemic that has led to an unprecedented disruption in lives and rising unemployment. With Covid-19 devastating millions of lives and impacting the global economy, it is not surprising that the lethal virus has led to the closure of about 55 percent of preschools across the country in the past four months.
“There is still a dichotomy about who the preschools come under – the education ministry or the women and child welfare department. But a notable point here is that it was the ministry to impose a ban on online learning for preschools; so why are they reluctant about taking a decision on their reopening?” asks Dr. Swati Popat Vats, president of Early Childhood Association (ECA).
Vats has urged the ministry to take a call soon on the matter so that children can start going back to preschools and working parents can start relying on the indispensable child-support services of the daycares.
The standalone preschools are mostly the ones to shut shop during the pandemic rather than those associated with well-established brands. This is because they have been left without any support as they don’t have the means and skills to shift to virtual learning.
With the global Covid 19 pandemic, preschools across the country are staring at an uncertain future. So how does the prolonged closure of playschools impact children and working parents?
Keeping children out of schools have severe implications, according to Vats. “With neighbourhood schools having closed down, parents will have to make the child travel to a longer distance to get quality preschools. Secondly, children who had just begin to get comfortable with preschools before lockdown would now have to be admitted to another one and make a whole new set of adjustments which is going to be extremely detrimental to their socio-emotional development,” she says.
Daycares have also shut down. Getting the children to stay in a quality daycare while the parents go to work will also be challenging and negatively impact children.
Vats adds, “Women have also been impacted adversely. All the teachers who work in these schools are women as a result of which women employment has been affected in preschools.”
Peddappaiah R S, Commissioner, Department of Women and Child Development refused to share his comments on private preschools.
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Imminent disruption of preschool education