“In the year after the pandemic schools will have to revisit, in some part at least, the instruction undertaken during the pandemic months and allow their students some leeway to accommodate the gaps that may have crept in… The idea is not to treat them with kid gloves…. rather focus on allowing children to regroup and resettle after the unnatural times of the pandemic.” Historian Sharmistha Gooptu on how to correct for the unevenness of home-based schooling post the pandemic (Times of India, August 20) “Although nurseries routinely use the rhetoric of play-way, their programmes are mostly a downward extension of school. This social reality makes early childhood education in its present form a mixed blessing. By promoting foundational literacy and numeracy as a key educational target of early schooling, we are likely to further stress an already embattled childhood.” Krishna Kumar, former director of NCERT, on the NEP 2020 and perils of prematurely imparted literacy (The Hindu, August 27) “The New Education Policy has set ambitious goals. It is short, however, on how these goals will be achieved… where will we find teachers who will be able to deliver these? How will we replace or transform inadequately prepared and poorly incentivised and often absent teachers that currently exist?” Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, on NEP 2020 implementation challenges (Deccan Herald, August 27) “At a time when India faces a huge threat from COVID; at a time when the economy is in deep trouble; at a time when people are struggling to get businesses back on track; when China has virtually invaded a part of Indian territory and refuses to back off — at this time, the wall to wall, tabloid, grotesque TV coverage of the Sushant Singh Rajput story is even more sickening.” Nidhi Razdan, associate professor of journalism, Harvard University, on the television coverage of the Sushant Singh suicide story (www.ndtv.com)
