Arguably the most debilitating and long-term impact of the two years of the pandemic, and one which will continue to haunt the nation for years to come, is the catastrophic learning loss caused by the pandemic-induced closure of schools. It is inexplicable as to why the government, which has been moving with alacrity to revive economic activity and ensure that the growth momentum is recaptured, has chosen to ignore the impact of the huge learning loss caused by school closures, particularly on children belonging to socially and economically disadvantaged communities, those belonging to rural areas, who are not only largely dependent on the government school system, but have also suffered the most for lack of access to infrastructure and devices necessary to partake of the digital learning substitutes which were offered as a substitute for on-site, classroom learning. Nothing underlines the marginalisation of education among national priorities than the paltry outlays for education in the Union Budget for 2022-23.
While on the surface, the outlay for education was increased by Rs 11,053.41 crore over the previous year, the drill-down into details reveals a different picture. The outlay for school education, for instance, which saw a nominal increase of Rs 9,000 crore over 2021-22, needs to be seen in the light of the sharp Rs 5,000 crore reduction effected in 2020, when the government diverted funds from education to other public health imperatives. Compared to the pre-pandemic level, the increase works out to just around Rs 3,000 crore. The country’s biggest school education scheme, the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, has been allocated Rs 37,383.36, an increase of more than Rs 6,000 crore from Budget 2021. However, this is actually less than the allocation for 2019, which was Rs 38,750.50 crore. There are other indications of the tendency of this government to focus on headline management. The National Scheme for Incentive to Girls, a scholarship incentive scheme for girl children from Scheduled Tribes and rural areas, announced with much fanfare a few years ago, has not been given any funds this year. Likewise, the Padhna Likhna Abhiyaan, an adult education scheme, has also not been given any money this year, indicating that these schemes have been quietly dumped.
The bigger issue, however, is the learning loss caused by the world’s longest closure of schools. While even countries like Uganda, who lag far behind India in vaccination, have reopened schools, Indian schools continue to remain shut. While the FM’s Budget speech dwelt at length on the ‘e-Vidya’ scheme, with ‘one class-one TV channel’ and 200 channels of learning content, the pandemic had cruelly exposed the stark digital divide between urban and rural India and students in private and government schools. Almost 80 per cent of children en rolled in government schools had no access to digital infrastructure. Most government schools lack even a working computer, leave alone access to stable internet. With schools also shut, teachers had struggled to maintain some semblance of learning using whatever resources they had at hand, principally basic smartphones and WhatsApp. There have been innumerable media reports of poor families selling their sole productive asset like a cow in order to buy a single smartphone to be shared by the children of the family. The Budget however, takes no note of the lack of infrastructure and Internet access, leave alone providing for it.
Even where some infrastructure was available, it was found that teachers struggled with technology and had difficulty in utilising digital learning material. In this context, the priority should have been on training and skilling teachers in hybrid and pure-play digital pedagogy. Instead, the allocation for teacher training has been cut by half, from Rs 250 crore to Rs 127 crore.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014, he asked for five years to transform the country. Early into the first term itself, this was changed to 10 years. As these 10 years near their end in 2024, the goalposts have been shifted ahead by another 25 years, with the FM talking of a 25-year ‘Amrit Kaal’, whereby India would be transformed by the 100th year of its existence as an independent nation. While a long-term vision is not to be mocked at – indeed, it is vitally necessary for a developing and aspirational nation to have a clear vision of where it wants to go – it is equally important to have a clear roadmap of the journey in order to get there.
That education is the key to long term and sustained growth and development, and is the key to poverty alleviation, is a no brainer. However, government after government has chosen to focus on more demonstrable signs of ‘development’ like roads, trains and airports – over ‘softer’ indicators like education and skill development. As far back as 1966, the National Education Commission had recommended an education outlay of atleast 6 per cent of the GDP, a figure reiterated in the Modi government’s National Education Policy. However, more than half a century after the Kothari Commission submitted its report, it is a telling indicator of how low education figures in the priorities of our leaders that the outlay continues to be just half that.
