Placing K-12 education back on track

As the world begins to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic which severely disrupted K-12 schooling, the challenges confronting India’s education system need to be urgently addressed, writes Elisabeth Evi

Indian education was severely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic. While many children missed school altogether during the world’s most prolonged schools lockdown — averaging 82 weeks — among major countries, partnerships between the public and private sectors and incremental use of educational technology permitted a minority of children to continue their schooling. As the world begins to recover in the aftermath of this calamity, the challenges confronting India’s education system need to be urgently addressed.

Making good learning loss of primary children. E-learning facilitated continuation of learning for a substantial number of children, especially in urban India. However, the positive effect was mostly for secondary school students. The overwhelming majority of preschool and primary (K-II) children have never attended school. These children need to be acclimatised to daily routines and expectations of the education system. Additionally, they need to learn the basics of reading, writing and math, while learning age-appropriate and grade-level content. Any strategy for moving forward must include plans for remediation that also address progress in students’ current grade learning outcomes.