Covid 19 has impacted 216,293,544 learners globally. The education system was under equipped to deal with a lockdown approaching 56 weeks. On an average the data shows that students lost the equivalent of 3 months of learning in mathematics and 1.5 months of learning in reading in the USA. 1 If this is the scenario in a well-developed country like the United States, the numbers will surely be grim for a developing nation like India. Most of the schools had their curriculum based on classroom interactions and in class experience and online teaching frazzled them.
The dropout rate in India for students are bound to increase by 20 percent due to the financial constraints faced by most of the families. The most effected will be the girl child as they are being expected to perform additional chores and household work instead of attending schools especially in the rural areas.2
The online education system is building and growing every day and trying its best to provide education to every child. But the lack of internet connection, computers, mobile phones and financial resources have again hampered the process of spreading online education in the rural areas. In the coming time, with development of a better infrastructure hopefully we will be able to overcome this challenge and education will be the right of each and every child irrespective of his financial status or geographical boundaries.
1. (Dorn et al., 2021)
2. https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/data-stories/data-focus/will-covid-19-lead-to-more-school-drop-outs/article33095912.ece