Report of several institutions and research institutes which came out during and after the covid-19 pandemic revealed the damage done to educational institutions and the learners as well at various levels, while some of them viewed this problem not a challenge but an opportunity to reschedule the traditional educational system which requires a much-needed revision from decades.
For many of us, it was a time to change our traditional tools and contents of the subject matter to make the field more knowledgeable and open-ended which will open new avenues of employment and livelihood at the global level, ultimately compelling the whole educational set-up to be more pragmatic and auto-renewable. Applying the vast knowledge of the internet and several means and tools of learning spreading across the world was overdue.
Schools and colleges all over the world remained closed, paralysing the educational institutions offering regular courses from nursery to post-graduate and lots of others who taught technical and vocational teaching and helped the nation to develop on the models adopted by the country itself.
A report published by the World Bank on South Asian Region emphasized the fact that only on account of closure of schools during and after the covid-19 pandemic, the region had to bear a loss of $622 to $880 billion, while a single country, India, had to lose about $400 billion in the country’s future earning, apart from significant learning damages done to the current generation.
Especially, developing and underdeveloped countries with meagre and insufficient resources have been exposed to this pandemic due to the poor availability of computer, internet and technical skills to their learners at various levels. They suffered most due to the long closure of schools and colleges, stopping of offline teaching, mainly because of months-long lockdowns and multiplication of mutations or infections everywhere. Perhaps, for the first time the issues of education caught a national heading and its multi-layered problems were highlighted in public and leadership circles.
The long closure of schools and colleges in countries of South Asia cast a dark shadow on the overall educational system of the region as a whole and posed a challenge of four types for learners and their families; a. reopening schools safely, b. delivering equitable and inclusive distance, c. supporting health well-being and protection, and d. mitigating against learning loss and reducing the learning divide. These apart, other risks include harm to vulnerable children, children dropping out and not enrolling, increased mental health and well-being issues. Even for a school to open today, it requires adequate hand wash facilities, sufficient space for physical distancing, community support for reopening and safe hygiene practices. The current pandemic Covid-19 highlighted the weaknesses of the school system in South Asia where sanitation facilities are insufficient, classrooms are often overcrowded, and there are inequalities in access to drinking water within countries and across the region of South Asia
The region ‘South Asia’ comprises several countries of the region, such as, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Afghanistan, Bhutan and almost all nations’ educational system in this area remained closed and disturbed during and after the covid-19 pandemic . As perhaps it was the largest pandemic the world has ever seen, it badly affected all areas and aspects of human life, including education, which hit learners of all countries.
It started at the end of December 2019 from Wuhan, China, but soon spread across the world within months and fiercely continued in 2020, 2021 and is likely to continue with light effects in 2022. The first case in the region of South Asia was detected in February 2020, but did not affect all countries equally due to varied demographic reasons.
In the region the three most populous countries, India, Pakistan and Bagladesh are densely populated while others are not, and this also affected the rate of infection as well as the number of casualties in comparison with other nations of the area. The number of infected people and loss of life also remained untouched with the health wellness of the nation, for example, while India is the second most impacted country in the world after the USA but with much fewer recorded deaths. Simultaneously, other countries of the region having lower population density and natural geographical barriers, like Afghanistan and Bhutan, managed to keep the infection and number of deaths under control. Apart from loss of lives, the education sector, in particular, in respect of enrolment and teaching, presented a deadly picture of South Asia and as estimated by the UNICEF report a large number of students from primary to secondary remained out of schools. Keeping in view the huge loss of teaching and learning of more than 400 million children, the agency itself directed India and its neighbours to reopen the closed educational institutional institutions whose classrooms were shut down by the coronavirus pandemic.
For reasons best known to all, the region South Asia’s education system became worst affected as there were no alternative or advanced ways of remote learning or online teaching to compensate for the damage caused by the long pandemic. Particularly in countries like Bangladesh, schools remained closed for almost 18 months while in other South Asian countries educational institutions remained closed for an average 31.5 weeks between March 2020 and August 2021. They suffered most because there was no access to the internet and technological devices which helped only the wealthy and those who already possessed technological skill to operate the devices. According to a study conducted in India the proportion of grade 3 children was just 24 percent in 2020 while there was no exposure for girls and others who experienced psychological distress, poor mental health and enhanced risk of violence.
In the context, the UNICEF report called on governments of the region to safely resume in-person learning and ensure student’s well being in general. In the phase of pandemic while schools in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan remained partially open, those in Pakistan and Sri Lanka were fully open. An added risk was also apprehended due to non-availability of child vaccines in most of the countries and efforts are still on to make it easy access to all nations of South Asia.
The long closure of schools and colleges in countries of South Asia cast a dark shadow on the overall educational system of the region as a whole and posed a challenge of four types for learners and their families; a. reopening schools safely, b. delivering equitable and inclusive distance, c. supporting health well-being and protection, and d. mitigating against learning loss and reducing the learning divide. These apart, other risks include harm to vulnerable children, children dropping out and not enrolling, increased mental health and well-being issues. Even for a school to open today, it requires adequate hand wash facilities, sufficient space for physical distancing, community support for reopening and safe hygiene practices. The current pandemic Covid-19 highlighted the weaknesses of the school system in South Asia where sanitation facilities are insufficient, classrooms are often overcrowded, and there are inequalities in access to drinking water within countries and across the region of South Asia.
