Most of us had accepted it as a sigh of relief from morning rush when the pandemic closed schools across the country. The loud exhaust noise from meandering gargantuan school buses on narrow streets as parents darted towards them like sprint players carrying gigantic school bags in one hand and an apologetic child in the other. These exhausted youngsters could now sleep longer as parents relaxed with their morning tea. However, as time passed by this relief came with a daunting challenge of various kinds which gawked at a bigger and more exhaustive national challenge of bridging embedded inequalities of development which was now impacting young lives.
The underprivileged children who had neither the wherewithal for e-classes nor the food back home to compensate for the lost mid-day meals at school suffered the Bacchic brutality which was returning to their lives. They were being pushed back to the labour market, rag-picking and hazardous industries. It also increased online sexual abuse of children as pedophiles became active. The shocking revelation made by the Europol director De Bolle before the European Union Parliament about “increased online activity by those seeking child sexual abuse material”, speaks much about young lives trapped during Covid-19. Neither teachers nor parents ever realised that longer exposure of children to Internet also exposed them to many insecure platforms of sexual abusers. One may ponder over the fact if some thinking or policy relief had preceded the declaration of a lockdown.
Mid-day meals are provided to children from elementary classes to Class 8. According to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) around 11.59 crore or 120 million children benefitted from this scheme till February 2020. This scheme was started by the Central government in 1995 as a National Nutritional Support Programme for primary school children even though a decade prior to this more than 12 states with Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Kerala in the lead had already adopted the midday meal programme. Children all across the world went through this period of starvation as schools remained closed. In the US, the National School Lunch Programme serves free meals to around 30 million children in schools but besides that most states have after school, low-cost food programmes to prevent children from “wasting” (undernourished and weak).The gap between India and the US is enormous as far as the number of food-supported children are concerned but that also suggests much longer supply chains in India to be affected when the programme stops. The bread, rice, dairy, oil and poultry suppliers and millions of ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) and Anganwadi (village courtyard shelter against malnutrition and hunger for children) workers and teachers who felt miserable for starving children but couldn’t help much. In the US, many teachers cooked and supplied free food for their school children irrespective of the programme, or cost or their own uncertain job situation.
The MHRD responded quickly to the suo motu Supreme Court notices in mid-March by declaring that children be served hot cooked food or be given food allowance. With scarcity of workers and suppliers the task was overwhelming if not impossible, yet the execution of these Central government instructions were not complied with in most of the schools around the country and children were either left to beg one square meal for themselves or pushed to the labour market. A large number of them belonged to the ‘Mahadalit’ communities (most marginalised amongst the Scheduled Castes). The Global Nutrition Report 2020 revealed that India has half of the world’s “wasted” children who have greater risk of death in childhood.
Another problem for children occurred in the manner services, supplies and safety of children jeopardised within the Child Care institutions (CCIs), orphanages, child protection and observation homes. According to the Review Exercise of CCIs during the period 2016-17 by the Jena committee, there were more than 1.8 lakh children living in them from extremely poor and vulnerable backgrounds. It was found that the government’s child helpline (1098) received 4.6 lakh calls within the first lockdown period. Majority of children called for food. While in some regions Childline and the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights rescued “reversed trafficked” (traffickers returning children) children from Shramik Express and from factories in Rajasthan and Gujarat, it’s no surprise that the helpline received 9,385 calls as cries for help against physical, emotional and sexual abuse. In the US, child welfare workers were worried as reported child abuse cases dropped significantly; i.e., in Massachusetts alone to 55% during the first week of the lockdown. Child experts in the field believe that the decline may not be revealing the true picture as children may be undergoing abuse in many more disorienting ways without being noticed and reported. Experts understand that the decline of reporting could be due to the fact that the child was no more with teachers and care takers in schools who were always the first reporters on noticing signs of child abuse.
The e-schooling has also been flaunted beyond its much limited relevance during the lockdown. Instead of a stop-gap arrangement it is now becoming a regular technologically invested destination for teaching. Do children need information dissemination alone or a holistic education? Bertrand Russell had added to it a metaphor of “sensitivity” where a teacher introduces the student to emotions to be felt on pains and calamities like wars which others suffer and have no direct relationship to self. Education is development of an enlightened universal being worthy of caring and sharing in a world of competition, conspiracy and conquest. Can online education even be a consideration for such an objective of education? Nonetheless, inequities which surface are rooted in the great digital divide and gender disparity practiced in Indian homes and in education of children.
According to the National Sample Survey (2017-18), only 24% Indians own a smartphone and only 11% households possess any type of computer. Further the survey found that only 24% of total Indian households have Internet facility and in villages it gets further reduced to mere 15%. Even in cities where one is made to believe that every home has Internet connection, a minuscule 42% have access to it. The digital divide further deepens when the poorest 20% have only 2.7% access to computer and 8.9% access to Internet, while for the top 20% the 27.6% own a computer and 50.5% have access to Internet. In both segments, the case for online classes does not hold a strong logic except for a very shortterm measure. The worst impact of these classes has been on girls whether in school or in colleges. The Internet and Mobile Association of India reports that 67% of men as compared to 33% women had Internet access in 2019, which in villages dropped to just 28% women against 72% men. Are we taking our girls out of the professional world of skills and corporate performance?
The world is definitely not going to be free of coronavirus in any near future, nor would the impressionable and most formative years of children return to them later. The schools and students have to learn to co-exist with the virus. Some innovative learning methods should be devised beyond washing hands, masking and physical distancing. Schools may reduce classroom strength, arrange classes in shifts to prevent clustering and crowding, sports, arts and laboratory activities could be after screening and lastly an alert teacher who tracks the child’s wellbeing both physically, emotionally and academically. If schools are able to bear this challenge, the country would get one of the smartest, more resilient and most socially responsible generation of adults in times to come.
The writer is Professor of Administrative Reforms & Emergency Governance, JNU, Delhi.
