Despite two-thirds of households reportedly having a smartphone, barely 50% of schoolchildren have access to digital learning, with only one-fourth having access all the time. States with low-learning achievements are also the ones with low smartphone access.
Over 95 per cent of villages in the country have secondary schools, Parliament was informed Covid restrictions and school closure have been a traumatising experience for children. Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021, the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2021, the Department of School Education’s (DoSE) compilation of innovative digital learning experiments across states in 2021, and Azim Premji University’s August 2021 field studies have extensively covered these challenges.
Despite two-thirds of households reportedly having a smartphone, barely 50% of schoolchildren have access to it, with only one-fourth having access all the time. States with low-learning achievements are also the ones with low smartphone access. Three-fourths of children in the studies found learning at home burdensome, and four-fifths said they learn better in school.
Half the students reported about teachers making contact at the household level by visits or phone calls. There was an increase in tuition, enrolment in government schools, and availability of textbooks during the pandemic.
Children missed out on regular in-person interactions critical for learning, especially at the primary stage. There has been loss of previous learning, including foundational abilities, such as describing a picture, reading with understanding, writing simple sentences based on a picture and performing basic mathematical operations. NAS 2021 also confirms decline in achievement scores across subjects, classes and regions.
The challenges of re-learning with understanding calls for a mission mode approach that recognises the ground situation. Hope hinges on schools remaining functional in the months to come with the success of the vaccination campaign. But fundamental shifts in learning are taking place that the system has to plan for.
While physical infrastructure of schools has improved, affording hybrid online-classroom learning, untied grants to panchayats and schools for need-based access to smartphones and tablets, with capacity building of teachers for digital learning facilitation, is needed. Panchayats can mobilise needs-based resources to ensure equitable access to digital learning opportunities. Audio and visual materials through low-cost access to gadgets like a sound box or large TV screen through a pen drive (as being experimented by Sampark Foundation in many states) can greatly improve reading with understanding.
Outside-classroom learning using public buildings, parks and professionals needs to be encouraged. Besides teachers, co-opting qualified teacher volunteers and the youth for learning gains with a token honorarium, needs a community-led movement. Funds, functions and functionaries with community organisations, school management committees and panchayats can facilitate local resource needs. No teaching position should be vacant. Provisions should be made by rationalising current strength or by recruiting Teacher Eligibility Test (TET)-passed candidates on an ad hoc basis till regular appointments are made.
The quality of online learning materials and ease of access to materials must be improved. One can learn from many successful edtech startups to improve learning outcomes.
The pool of teacher development professionals should be expanded beyond cluster-, block- and district-level training institutions. Let civil society organisations, edtech startups and private sector learning professionals also engage at the school level.
Measuring learning gains is critical. Robust assessments at all levels and for all areas of learning outcomes should be developed. The pupil’s performance should be shared with parents. With nearly 36% women and 47% men in the 15-49 age group reporting 10 or more years of schooling, assessments and home support for learning need facilitation. With Covid uncertainty still hovering over schools, wherever possible, parents have to step in.
Teachers also need to map homes of non-literate parents to see who could provide learning support from the community for those households.
Teaching has to be informed by the learning levels of each child in the class, not the regular curriculum. Assessment of foundational abilities – now class-specific abilities – across all classes is necessary. This will require a change in curriculum, with a reduction in curricular load to align with foundational abilities, along with a planned focus on foundational literacy and numeracy.
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