School reopening in India: Here are a few things which should be given priority
In reopening schools, the role of governments is paramount. They must show leadership, set up task forces, develop detailed standard operating procedures, bring stakeholders together, use science for decision making, and counter misconceptions. There have to be initiatives to plan for months ahead.
It seems that most of the apprehensions about reopening schools are based upon misconceptions such as children should be vaccinated before attending school. Many parents are under the impression that reopening school implies mandatory attendance for their children. Clearly, in order to bring children safely back to the schools, the dialogue among parents, schools, and governments need to increase (mainly to address misconceptions and to discuss the way forwards) and the governments at all levels have to lead that effort.
Here are a few things which should be given priority.
Set Up School Reopening Task Forces
Every state government, followed by every district in that state, must set up ‘school re-opening task forces', with membership for senior government officials from education and health departments, independent subject experts on school education, public health, epidemiology, as well as with representation of researchers and academics, school principals, parents and their association.
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These task forces should address genuine concerns of parents, bring science into public discourse and facilitate evidence-based decision making. It is important that decisions are not made on commonsense and opinion only but based upon emerging global evidence and experience on school reopening. The role of these task forces has to be to minimize and mitigate the risk associated with re-opening of schools and build trust amongst stakeholders.
School Reopen: Guidelines, Decentralized Decision Making
In the ongoing pandemic, nothing is risk-free, not even staying at home. Most children have been at home yet; around 60-75 per cent have been exposed, as noted in various sero-surveys. To re-open schools, there has to be a clear roadmap, for months and years ahead. The Union Government has already released a detailed document. It is now the turn of state governments to develop detailed and comprehensive guidelines and standard operating procedures (SOPs). The SOPs should cover a wide range of topics including what improvements schools must make in order to open safely. They include necessary guidance on improving ventilation, social distancing, entry and exit of staff and students. There has to be priority on vaccination of school staff. Various approaches for functioning of schools and classes, including a hybrid system (virtual and in-person classes) and staggered classes must be part of the strategy.
While broader principles of schools opening should be guided, the process needs to be decentralized to district and sub-district levels. The district task forces should have the flexibility to examine the local epidemiological parameters such as test positivity rate etc. to determine school opening and closure. The final decision on frequency and regularity of classes- whether once, twice or thrice in a week should be left to the schools. The decision in villages can be taken by gram Sabha and in urban settings by schools in consultation with elected councilors and representatives of parents association. In any case, the classes should be structured to bring additional layers of safety measures (More on this in the next part of this series).
Reopening Schools In India: Primary, Upper Primary First
Many states are keen to open schools for older children in Classes 9 to 12. Tamil Nadu schools are reopening for those classes from September 1; Delhi schools reopen to allow admissions, practical work and doubt-clearing for Classes 10 and 12 from today, August 9; school reopening in Uttar Pradesh (UP), again for senior classes, is scheduled for August 16, 2021. However, priority should be given to opening primary and upper primary schools.
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Children in the primary school age group (6 to 11 years old) are at the lowest risk of moderate to severe COVID-19. The loss of learning for them is also more acute. Older children are relatively better at absorbing online classes and more screen time is allowed for them. They can do self-study as well. For younger children, in-person interactions and peer-interaction are much more important.
Higher-income families and parents of children in private schools seem to be more apprehensive about sending children to school. A recent news report said that during parent-teacher meetings (PTM) of government schools in Delhi, 90 per cent of parents were willing to send their children to school. Clearly, the discourse should not be unduly influenced by parents who are not keen and are in the minority. Even within these sub-groups, higher priority should be given to open government schools which teach large numbers of children from poor families. Schools serving cooked mid-day meals (MDM) should be selected for early opening.
Children who were supposed to start their schooling or need to be admitted to new schools – for example, a child who needs admission in Class 1 or someone who completed Class 8 in the last academic session and is seeking admission in Class 9 – should be facilitated. Punjab became the first state to reopen schools for all classes. Punjab schools reopened on August 2. While schools in some pockets of the state have opened, there is no final decision on when schools will reopen in Maharashtra as a whole in 2021.
COVID-19: Tackling Misconceptions And Lessons From Strategies To Tackle Vaccine Hesitancy
Governments need to take the lead in developing public awareness material on various aspects of school opening and widely disseminate it. Parents and their associations need to be assured that even after the opening of schools, the options of exclusive online classes or a blended mode that combines offline and online, will still be open to them. The choice should be with parents to select the mode.
Similarly, school reopening would not mean all activities will resume. It has to be a dynamic process, designed and implemented at the local level, possibly by every school, be it in a rural or urban setting. There have to be SOPs to guide when to close again or resume, depending upon the level of transmission in that setting. The vaccination of all school staff, including teachers, should be ensured and facilitated.
Also Read| Learning Loss Due To School Closure Would Have Weakened Fundamental Knowledge Of Students: Parliamentary Panel
There is much to learn from tackling vaccine hesitancy. We have learnt over the years that most of the time, people are hesitant to get vaccinated because of lack of sufficient information. However, once their queries are answered, most come forward to get vaccinated. A similar situation appears to be applicable for parents' apprehension about sending children to school. All the approaches which are used for tackling vaccine hesitancy including combination of information dissemination through social media platforms and engagement with influencers should be explored. Efforts should be made to systematically understand the apprehensions of the parents. Thereafter, mass awareness campaigns should be conducted addressing common concerns of families and parents, dispelling rumors, and sharing information on COVID-19 vaccination of children. For instance, many parents have received advice to give their children flu shots to prevent Covid-19. The fact is that while flu vaccination has its own merits, its role in preventing Covid-19 is unknown.
Compensation For Learning Loss: Need Concerted Actions
There has been extensive learning loss in the pandemic period. There is a need in all countries to compensate for the learning loss. This should be prioritized by engaging NGOs and volunteers.
There is much learning from different countries and innovative approaches. Bridge courses and condensed programs for a few weeks and months are a few options. The UK and Ghana have announced national tutoring programs. The USA is also exploring various other programs. In Italy, university students are conducting one-on-one classes. A few other countries have followed different approaches. The Government of Kenya has decided to repeat the entire academic year for all grades of students. The Philippines has proposed extended working hours and additional classes.
Indian states need to learn from these experiences, and collaborate with NGOs working on education to facilitate such a process. In due course, there would be a need to learn from other states. Punjab became the first state in India to open schools for all classes. In Odisha, there have been many initiatives to ensure success of these interventions.
Coronavirus, Schools, And The Future
The pandemic is here for many more months and the virus will stay for a few years. The learnings from school closures should be used to prepare for the months ahead.
One, designate schooling as an essential service and school staff as essential workers. Then, priority should be given to vaccinate the school staff. The opening and closure of schools should be linked to essential services and parameters such as when the OPD of the biggest hospital in that district or setting is closed; schools should follow the same approach. The discussions related to school re-opening and closure should be an integral part of the state and district disaster management authority meetings on Covid-19 and linked to the containment and unlock plan.
Two, improve internet connectivity and broadband access in Indian schools. As per a survey, less than a quarter of India's schools had internet access for children. It is time that all state governments increase access and skills in online learning.
Three, focus on teachers' capacity building. The quality of online education is largely poor as studies show that the proportion of teachers with the capacity to use digital platforms for teaching is variable. Considering virtual learning is going to be a method for a long time, necessary steps should be taken by the government to build teachers' capacity in online and blended teaching.
Fourth, create a dashboard on school functioning. Every state and district government, possibly leading newspapers, should start a dashboard on how well school education is returning to normalcy. What proportions of schools are open? What proportion of children is attending in-person classes and what proportion is missing all the classes. This can be used for further decision-making. This has to be monitored by task forces at all levels as well as by the Chief Ministers and health and education ministers of Indian states.
Fifth, the government should issue a funding package for education, to bring schools to normalcy and adapt to a new normal. This funding should be used to prepare schools to adapt to blended classes, make the modifications needed for ventilation etc., and help children who may have fallen behind in learning catch up. The school health services, which are very weak, should be made functional and strengthened. Such a package should be in line with the Rs 23,000 crore package for health announced in July 2021.
Conclusion
The discussion and planning for the opening of the schools should have started from the day when schools were closed. We are 17 months late for this discussion. We clearly have lost a lot of time already and must not lose more. The discourse around school opening should be as regular as the deliberations on the Covid-19 vaccination. Some of the closures were unavoidable but the longer children stay out of school, they will continue to lose skills which they are not practicing. Governments should accept responsibility and hold themselves accountable and take all the necessary steps to open schools safely, urgently.
Dr Chandrakant Lahariya (MBBS,MD), a physician and a trained epidemiologist, is a public policy expert with nearly two decades of work experience including that of working with the United Nations system, for 13 years. He tweets @DrLahariya and is available at c.lahariya@gmail.com, to respond to queries and concerns of the parents and school principals and teachers.
This is Part II of a four-part series on Covid-19 and schools in India.
Read Part I: Opinion: Why India's Schools Should Open Immediately
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.