For the past 15 months after it was belatedly acknowledged that the novel Coronavirus, aka Covid-19, which originated in neighbouring China, was rife and spreading rapidly within India and taking a heavy daily toll of lives, national attention has been focused on ways and means to combat it. But even before a comprehensive unprecedented national lockdown of industry, business, trade and public transport was officially declared on March 25, 2020 — with four hours notice given to the public — all schools, colleges and education institutions countrywide had been shut down from mid-March.
Since then, the country has made considerable progress in containing the worst ravages of the pandemic. The number of Covid infected citizens has reduced from a peak of 4.12 lakh on May 6 to 46,617 on July 1, and the count of officially recorded fatalities caused by this deadly, easily transmissible virus that attacks the lungs, has fallen from 3,980 to 853 per day during the same period. And, with a nationwide vaccination drive underway, all indications are that the worst of Covid-19 is over and infections and fatalities are plateauing.
During this harrowing period in national history, the issue of livelihoods of the general populace has received insufficient attention. Although industry and business have been accorded expert attention and government relief, and are slowly limping back towards normalcy, schools and higher education institutions have remained tightly shut for the past 15 months with little prospect of campuses reopening in the near future. A small minority of children from well-off homes are learning best as they can in online classrooms offered by high-end private schools. But education of the great majority of the country’s 260 million children has been severely interrupted.
It’s disturbing that India’s youngest citizens who were educationally shortchanged even before outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, have been out of school for longer than children of any country worldwide, except the US and Brazil. But children in these countries have superior Internet connectivity and greater access to digital learning devices. Against the backdrop of alarming reports that the future learning and livelihoods of an estimated 200 million children countrywide are in grave danger, in this issue we make a strong case for reopening schools — and all other education institutions — for on-campus teaching-learning. With adequate health and safety safeguards, of course.
In addition, this issue features the EW Grand Jury India Higher Education Rankings 2021-22 that recognise and rank low-profile colleges and institutions excelling under unusual parameters. Very useful for school-leavers mulling higher education options. It is also rich with expert opinions, news from states, institution profiles. Let’s discuss and debate.
