SHUBHANGI SHIFA
Ranchi, April 12: The Jharkhand government, in collaboration with state partners UNICEF; CARE India and USAID organised a two-day National Conclave to decide on action plans needed for helping children cope up and to discuss other facets around safe school reopening on April 11 and 12.
The aim of the conclave is to understand academic guidelines and initiatives by various education departments across the nation, to learn around innovations and scalable models around comprehensive learning and to derive learning from different state initiatives to inform the creation of a contextualized learning recovery framework for the state.
While talking on the issue and expressing his concerns over the state of education of children in Jharkhand presently, state minister for Department of Education and Excise Jagannath Mahto said, “The losses that we have faced during the pandemic and the resultant lockdown is immense. At present, we don’t have any plans and things are not as simple as building a project missed in the earlier financial year.”
“We need to discuss how we will bring about our plans to improve the condition of education in students of our states. Along with this discussion, we need to act on our plans aggressively. I have noticed, not only students but even parents choose private education despite being officials of the state, because they know the condition of education in state schools. However, what is now needed is making state schools up to par as private schools, so that people may once again trust the state education system. The conclave organized today will be considered successful only when students return from private schools to government schools,” the minister added.
Mahto further added, “Upon my visit to schools in the state I have noticed children don’t even know the names of our President, neither do they know if Ranchi or Delhi is the capital of Jharkhand. I would suggest all our officials visit schools regularly and keep the teachers in check. Along with this, I urge them to encourage not only children but also their parents and teachers.”
Kiran Kumari Pasi, State Project Director, JEPS said, “As per UNESCO, India is the second country on account of the longest school closure. It has pushed back the educational gains made over the last three years. During this time, state education departments have taken several initiatives to deliver education through digital, blended and hybrid modes to ensure the continuation of education across grades.”
“However, studies indicate that due to the high digital divide, government’s initiatives of online education through e platforms and web platforms could do very little to ensure access and learning of children across the spectrum. Due to this, many children are at risk of dropping out,” Pasi added.
The director further said, “As per the data, only 30 percent students were able to benefit from online classes. Around 42 percent of students were away from school and education completely during the lockdown. Along with this, around 92 percent of students have lost at least one ability; be it language ability, numeracy, etc. Meanwhile, 72 percent of female students were involved in house work and could not get time for education. The conclave today is an effort to change this scenario and overcome the problems that we are facing regarding rehabilitation of education among children.”
Education officials from states of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Assam and Karnataka shared their experiences of the lockdown and showcased their plans and models developed for coping up with the issue at hand through presentations on ‘Safe school reopening guidelines’, ‘Challenges and strategies to overcome the learning loss’, ‘Addressing learning challenges at upper primary level among others.
Meanwhile, representatives of USAID, CARE India, Room to Read, Azim Premji University Bangalore, Central Square Foundation, and UNICEF put up their thoughts and ideas through presentations on ‘Initiatives taken to minimize learning loss of children’, ‘Parenting education to address learning needs of children’, among others.
