How Covid 19 pandemic has changed education forever

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational systems throughout the world have been closed. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) centers, universities, and colleges have all closed their doors but online tutoring and homework help is still open.

As a result of COVID-19, most governments decided to temporarily close educational institutions. In light of the pandemic, approximately 825 million students are affected by school closures as of 12 January 2021. A UNICEF monitoring report shows that 23 countries have national closures, and 40 countries have local closures, affecting over 47 percent of the world’s students.

People with less money have faced fewer educational options, while people with more money have had access to education. Due to online education programs, schools are shifting the responsibility of education to families and individuals, thus making it harder for people to access their education.

The impact of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school closures on students, teachers, and families is significant, as well as on the economy and society. During the pandemic, school closures raised important issues related to student debt, digital learning, food insecurity, and homelessness, as well as access to childcare, health care, housing, internet, and disability services.

Children from disadvantaged backgrounds were particularly affected. Learning was interrupted, nutrition compromised, childcare was a problem, and families unable to work suffered additional costs.

UNESCO recommended schools and teachers use distance learning programs, open educational apps, and platforms to limit disruptions of education during periods of school closure.

Impacts on education: Schools

Public policy should encourage schooling as the best means to raise skills. While going to school can be fun and raise social skills and awareness. It is from an economic viewpoint ultimately more important to have a child in school so they can learn. This can be accomplished even in a relatively short time in school; even a relatively short time missed from school has consequences. But are there any estimates as to how much the COVID-19 interruption will affect learning? We can’t be very precise since we are in a brand new world; however, we can get an approximate order of magnitude by using other studies.

This report analyzes the impact of the pandemic across five themes and maps the various initiatives that governments and civil society groups have undertaken to address the issues:

• Increase in the number of dropouts during and post-pandemic
• the decline in wellbeing and academic performance
• using digital learning
• Limited teachers’ role and capacity, and
• Only private schools sustained and govt schools diluted

Below I have mentioned a few noticeable impacts on the education system and school.

1. Headline numbers:

Private school enrolment declines from 28,8% in 2020 to 24,4% in 2021. This data shows a clear shift of students from private to government schools, the report shows, and a decline in private school enrollment as well.

Due to covid, many families lost their earning source. Parents were not able to pay student fees that resulted in a shift from private to govt schools.

Government school enrolments declined to start in 2006 and stabilized around 65% in 2018, according to ASER Center. In light of this context, an increase of 5 percentage points over the past year is extremely significant.

2. Tuition-dependent:

Study findings show that students, especially those from poor families, are depending more than ever on private tuition.

Across all educational categories, 39.2 percent of children are attending tuition classes, between 2018 and 2021, but children with parents with lower education levels increased by 12.6%. While children with parents with more education levels increased by 7.2 percentage points, according to the report.

Parents give preference to tuition classes. It was not only economical but safe as well. At some point in time, parents see school education as a waste of many and less outcome-oriented. Such reasons lead to an increase in the number of private tuitions.

3. Digital divide:

The pandemic has left the most vulnerable students in India’s formal education system vulnerable because they lack experience with pre-primary classes and do not have access to digital devices, states the study. Not addressing their special needs can have grave consequences, it concludes.

In his report, the director of the ASER research center Surman Bhattacharjee observes that almost one in three students in Classes I and II has never attended a regular class. There are 36.8% of government school students and 33.6% of private school students in this group.

4. Falling behind:

It’s also a warning that their learning outcomes may be affected if we do not act immediately on the problem of kids being unable to catch up. Sixty-five percent of teachers said the issue was one of their biggest challenges. According to teachers and investigators across the country, students in primary grades had difficulty understanding questions testing. Basic comprehension and mathematical skills in the National Achievement Survey (NAS) conducted by the central government.

A sample assessment conducted in Karnataka in March 2021 of 20,000 children ages 5-15 found that foundational scores dropped steeply, particularly in lower primary grades, underscoring the need for special assistance for children returning to or joining schools for the very first time.

Impacts on education: Families

There has been no tendency to send children home to play, perhaps to the disappointment of some. In order to not miss out on too much, they would continue their education at home.

Children’s learning is greatly influenced by their families. It has been widely agreed that family input is essential to education. Home-schooling is expanding at an unprecedented rate around the globe, which on the surface might be viewed positively.

However, this role is typically seen as a complement to what the school provides. In addition to counting, parents can inspire their children to learn math through everyday life activities. Such as pointing out simple math problems or providing insight into history through visits to a museum or monument. Whether parents should be the primary driver of their children’s schooling. Even together with online materials remains unclear, and while many parents on every continent do their children’s schooling at home successfully. This does not seem to apply to all people in general.

Global homeschooling:

While global homeschooling is sure to produce some moments of inspiration, anger, fun, and frustration. It’s highly unlikely that global homeschooling will replace the learning lost through school on average. However, the important point is that education is likely to be unevenly distributed among families, so parents will have varying degrees of ability to help their children.

Differences in teaching time, non-cognitive skills, resources (for example, not everyone has access to the best online material), and the maturity of the parents is essential. It is difficult to assist your child with something you would not possess knowledge of yourself.

As a result of this incident, inequalities in human capital growth will grow for the affected ones. Differences in teaching time, non-cognitive skills, resources. For example, not everyone has to access to the best online material, and the maturity of the parents is essential. It is difficult to assist your child with something you would not possess knowledge of yourself. As a result of this incident, inequalities in human capital growth will grow for the affected ones.