The United Nations has described the global scale of education disruption from COVID-19 as “unparalleled”. The 2019–20 Coronavirus pandemic has affected educational systems worldwide, leading to widespread closures of schools, universities and colleges. While students across the board have been impacted by the pandemic, it is important to explore the severe impact on children from marginalized communities in many countries of the global south, including India which, at 260 million children, has the largest school-going population in the world.

As the impact of the pandemic unfolds, it is becoming abundantly clear that traditional learning models and schools have ill-equipped us and our children to understand, make meaning, respond and adapt to the uncertainty and vulnerabilities emerging from the current crisis. The last few years have seen the discourse around education reform moving towards making children work-ready for jobs of the future. An approach that has become outdated due to 3 – main reasons:

• The future is already here:The often-repeated assumption that children would have to face an uncertain job market and a fast-changing world a few years from now is already a reality, and this uncertain future is changing as we speak. This is a time to self-reflect and critically examine — have we done enough to prepare our children for this unprecedented situation?

• Entrenched systemic inequalities have deepened: The current crisis has further thrown up the systemic inequities in our society with the poor and marginalised being affected many times over than the average population. When an eighth-grade student we heard from, who shares a smartphone with her family of four – the family has to make a  tough choice between buying an internet-package and essential groceries – is not allowed into her online class for being five minutes late, are we not perpetuating the same systemic biases we held offline on the online world? What could be the role of education in changing this reality?

The need to shift mindsets

The pandemic and its impact on educational ecosystems require for us to reflect on the existing systemic inequities that have become more visible in the recent months. We see schools rushing for immediate solutions to sustain academics, but there are far-reaching effects on students and teachers when they are forced to adopt online learning. Our policymakers need to take into account the fact that marginalised communities do not have easy access to digital infrastructure. The need of the hour is to ensure education is available to all, rather than to ensure those who can afford education continue to receive it.

The psychological impact on children, whose lives are suddenly changed forever has largely been left unaddressed; they are expected to adapt when even we, the adults who are meant to guide young people have no clarity on what to expect from the future.

Re-imagining the purpose of education

Where do we go when all this is over? If one is ‘lucky enough’ to have not been completely displaced by the pandemic, one hopefully goes to school. But just how prepared are schools to respond to this reality? We have all experienced collective grief and loss at a global and unimaginable level. We need to let this sink in. And then, when we are ready to respond, let us ask ourselves what is the most compassionate offer we can make to our children under these circumstances? Will our best foot forward be dumping our own anxiety of ‘loss of learning’ on them? Or will we recognise that they have learnt perhaps the most difficult lesson of their lives in the last few months as they stayed put in their homes? The role of teachers in the upbringing of young people is often overlooked. 

#Whatif, instead of examinations based on rote-learning, we ask our students; ‘Do you know how to be kind to each other? Do you know how to make decisions that are good for you, your community and for the planet? Do you know how to collaborate and celebrate the success of others? Do you know how to heal?’

The need for a more inclusive policy

Current systems follow a one-size-fits-all approach, whereas the reality is that in a country like India, such an approach is tough to put into practice. We need an education system that is sensitive to the myriad impact of adversity on children from vulnerable backgrounds. When designing solutions, the needs of these sections of society deserve more attention than they presently receive. The New Education Policy, while a positive step in the right direction, once again lacks clarity on implementation. It remains to be seen how such a revolutionary step in education will affect a country as diverse and vast as ours bearing in mind that not everyone will have access to the same kind of facilities and infrastructure. Another challenge that we foresee is the measurement of success upon implementation and the way forward from there.

Kindness as the foundation of a framework for change

The framework for education should start by redefining the purpose of education to mean ‘thriving for all’. We conducted a study to better understand what it means to thrive. Are the indicators the same when children come from adversity? Do tailored approaches need to be followed to achieve desired outcomes across the board? We have found that empathetic adults and safe spaces allow young people to fully discover their potential and thrive despite coming from adversity. At the centre of this approach lies kindness and the willingness to listen, holding spaces for young people to express themselves and be treated as unique individuals. 

Academic outcomes can be affected by several factors that are out of the control of educators. Scoring high marks does not necessarily mean that a child is prepared for whatever the future may throw at them. Adopting an approach that places thriving at the centre of education is much more inclusive and helps young people seek a more meaningful engagement with life.

The post Why we need to re-define the purpose of education appeared first on India Leaders for Social Sector.

Summer always brings back childhood memories of long school breaks and anticipation of what the next year at school would be like. Yet, this summer, most children are simply longing to go back to school – and we have no idea when that will actually happen.

With schools shut for almost three months, children have been suddenly forced to adapt to new ways of learning. Some of them have been accessing learning through phones and laptops. Several private schools have shifted to online classes. My niece in Grade 3 now knows more about Zoom and Microsoft Teams than me; she and her classmates have also figured out how to privately message each other without getting caught by the teacher!

Despite the classroom going online, one thing hasn’t changed: the teacher is still the one speaking and most children—now outside the four walls of the classroom—are still zoning out. If they were doodling and daydreaming in the classroom, they are doing that sitting in front of computers. Some are also finding it difficult to adapt to the new normal. I heard my five-year-old nephew, whose kindergarten classes are now on Zoom, tell his mother that school isn’t for him as listening to his teacher gave him a splitting headache. My niece, on the other hand, wants to go back to school because she misses her friends. The daily interaction and engagement with other children, the foundation of all learning, has taken the biggest hit in the current context.

New medium, old thinking

Besides their online schooling, my niece and nephew are doing a lot more on their own. They have designed their own games using discarded and old stationery items. Their boredom is giving them the freedom to experiment and explore. Observing that they are learning a lot more from each other has reaffirmed my belief that learning can happen anywhere, anytime and through anyone.

The sad part, though, is how our society still perceives learning. Many well-intentioned parents, for instance, feel that children are not learning enough during their online classes. They are therefore adding to the burden on their children by having them attend tuition classes on Zoom so that they can ‘revise’—basically try to recall, repeat and memorise—what was taught at (online) school earlier.

[Also read: ‘The spirit remains the same, the ambition is bigger’, with Safeena Husain from Educate Girls]

Our collective obsession with revision, recall and memorising is deep. As a result, this crisis innovation of online schools has ended up becoming a continuation of the old offline classroom. We have transferred all the flaws of the physical classroom to the online space. 

We forget that learning can only be facilitated. And both the classroom and online meeting rooms are mediums through which students can either be instructed or provided with opportunities to explore, question, share and understand.

Teachers are struggling equally in this transition. They need support and spaces where they can discuss their issues and concerns, especially in the new context where the challenge is more in terms of engaging with children in a medium that is unfamiliar.  At the India Education Collective, our approach towards teacher empowerment has been to facilitate monthly teacher meetings at the cluster level, wherein teachers collaboratively solve their challenges.  It is difficult to replicate the engagement and interaction using current technology tools. The importance of peer learning and support amongst teachers is and will remain an important process for any effective education system. How are we thinking of addressing these kinds of requirements?

Re-thinking how our children learn

For those of us who earnestly desire a transformation in education, the question remains: How do we create meaningful learning opportunities for all children whether through online or offline platforms? Moreover, how do we serve children who have no access to online platforms? Only one-fourth of our children reportedly have access to online learning tools. What is happening to their learning when schools remain shut?

Whilst we have faith that their imagination would have helped them find resources within their environment to continue their journey of exploration, we also know that isn’t enough. Besides nutrition through the mid-day meal, the regular interaction and engagement for learning in the schooling environment is equally important.

We need to be prepared for multiple scenarios. Students may return to the classroom with limited ability to ‘bring back’ what they had memorised before schools shut. Instead, they will carry new knowledge into the classroom: children do not waste time; they observe, engage, play and imagine. And when they come back to schools, they will bring all of this with them. Are we willing to broaden our notion of learning to include these fundamental abilities of observation, asking questions, interpretation and more?

Many schools reluctantly cancelled end-of-year examinations in the last academic year because of the pandemic and lockdown. The reluctance came from the over-dependence on exams being the singular source of information to know how much the student has learnt (or, the ability to recall). On the other hand, if the entire year had held evidence of learning through different mechanisms that documented ‘learning with understanding’ and ‘learning by doing’, the system could have handled the ‘evidence’ part of learning with ease and conviction to transition the students to the next grade. Even though moving the students to the next class was an important step towards freeing both children and teachers from the dreaded exams, it did not quite change the system. Will the online medium point us to a new lesson to be learnt as schools think of restructuring their scarce time in 2020?

The reverse migration that we have been witnessing in recent months will bring more children to rural government schools, which are already under-staffed and under-resourced. Student enrolment will increase. The fears caused by this communicable disease will also increase among students and teachers. With a whole new set of dynamics at play, schools in general and rural government schools, in particular, will need a lot of our attention if we are serious about rebuilding our education system.

We have been given a moment to pause and reflect on how we have approached and understood learning as a society. The new context is challenging us to reimagine our education system; it is presenting us with an opportunity to observe how children learn, think, explore and question. Will we make the most of this opportunity?

The post What the lockdown is urging us to learn about learning appeared first on India Leaders for Social Sector.