Wednesday Post

You all are aware that school/colleges were closed due to  Covid 19 virus just before the Lockdown1 was announced. In some states time has come to restart the academic institutions after the summer vacations. Many  schools have started on line classes for the students, but here the catch is all students  and their parents may not be net savvy , additionally the student will need internet connections and  device like personal computer/laptop to log into on line classes. Now problem is how many house holds have spare computers/laptops or smart phone even , so that the children can avail this facility of on line teaching. Agreed the parents of the students studying in high end school may be able to afford personal computer/laptop for their children, but for other buying this device now will put them under additional burden at the time of this pandemic.

One more problem will be faced by younger students, who are studying in lower classes say up to third or fourth, as they will constantly need the help of one of their parents all the time for log ins for different classes conducted by different teachers. For completing their home work  on line also will require parent’s guidance. Now when the pandemic is in full swing most of the parents are also working from home, and if both parents are working then who will guide the children. Students of higher classes may or may not need parental guidance for on line activities.

Now how you can expect the children who are studying in lower end schools, to arrange for personal computer/laptops or smart phones. First thing they themselves may not be that computer savvy and secondly their parents also will ignorant about on line classes. Consider the city of Mumbai- do you expect children of Municipal/Govt school will be able to handle this type of studies, and most of these children stay in chawls or slums, where they will not even have required silence to listen to on line teaching. All these will be additional burden for the parents, as apart from paying the school fees they will have to shell out additionally for data connection (internet) and arrange for device, this at the time  of pandemic when the income of the person is not guaranteed.

Now think of scenario, the parents are working for essential services and their children after the school hours go to crèche, and in the evening one of the parents picks up the child from crèche and take him/her home. So how the child of this parent will be able to attend on line classes from home.

There have been talks at various govt levels,  that schools should open by July. It is all but certain that this pandemic is not going to go away shortly and expert believe that it will at least 3 to 4 months before this virus subsides. Secondly how some one can even think of starting schools when even the offices are just started working with 10% of the employees. Have the bureaucrat visited some govt and even ordinary private schools in Mumbai, where in so many schools 3 students are sharing one bench and there are more than 40/50 students in a class room. Then how social distancing will be maintained.  Even in high ended private schools (barring few), to maintain social distancing will always be a problem.

There is one more problem in most of the big cities- most of the students commute to their schools in  buses whose services are organised by school. If you see these school buses they are always jam packed because school administration also want to economise on running the buses. So how children will be able to maintain social distancing in school buses? In these scenarios the parents will be most reluctant to send their children to school.

Friends have you notice that after the onset of this pandemic the activity in most of the govt departments have come to stand still except who are connected with essential service, and all the govt offices are working with bare minimum strength. The private offices have just started working with 10% of their strength, then how can administration think of reopening the educational institutions. Even  there has been no sessions of Parliament, State Assemblies and  Municipal corporation of any city, so when our law makers are afraid to assemble in a meeting hall for conducting the respective affairs of Parliament, State Assemblies and Municipal corporations, as it will be difficult to maintain the social distance due to seating arrangements, then how can the  children in schools will be able to maintain social distancing. So when the law makers are afraid to conduct the business but they expect children to go to schools.

In my opinion the re opening of the schools should not be govt’s top priority. I agree that if the pandemic continues, many students may lose one year of their academic career, but one’s life comes before every thing else. One more thing which came to my mind was that many of our political leaders run educational institutions through the various trusts formed by them. It may be that they are afraid that if there are no classes they will lose govt grants and various fees they collect from students.

What you say my friends.

Awaiting your views/comments/feed backs.

Anil Malik

Mumbai, India

10^th June 2020.