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Sep 27, 2021
Schools have gradually started reopening for in-person teaching in some states after being forced to shut for around 17 months since March, 2020. During this period, children’s learning along with their socio-emotional growth has suffered massively. According to a study by Azim Premji University, children didn’t just lose out on new learning experiences but also forgot much of what they had learnt in previous years — 92% of the children have lost one language ability while 82% have lost a mathematical ability from the previous year across all classes.
Schools have gradually started reopening for in-person teaching in some states after being forced to shut for around 17 months since March, 2020. During this period, children’s learning along with their socio-emotional growth has suffered massively. According to a study by Azim Premji University, children didn’t just lose out on new learning experiences but also forgot much of what they had learnt in previous years — 92% of the children have lost one language ability while 82% have lost a mathematical ability from the previous year across all classes.
While there have been learning losses, significant efforts were undertaken to minimize these losses to the extent possible with governments and education-focused organizations coming together to build innovative solutions to facilitate learning at home. Some of these models include mohalla classes which leverage teachers and volunteers, teaching via SMS and IVRS, and WhatsApp-based learning. However, these have only been effective in small geographies where there has been a strong administrative push, access to digital learning resources, and an incentive for parents, volunteers, and the community at large to participate.
As schools reopen, we must focus on continuing the home-learning programmes since there remains a threat of disruptions due to any future Covid-19 wave which might cause sporadic school closures. Moreover, home-learning programmes over and above classroom instruction will provide children with additional instructional time, which is critical to helping them catch up. Efforts should not just be around continuation of these programmes but also on how they can be improved to make it scalable and sustainable
As schools reopen, we must focus on continuing the home-learning programmes since there remains a threat of disruptions due to any future Covid-19 wave which might cause sporadic school closures. Moreover, home-learning programmes over and above classroom instruction will provide children with additional instructional time, which is critical to helping them catch up.
Government systems and administrators will need to communicate effectively with the trifecta of teachers, parents and children to ensure that their interactions continue to grow.
As we step into a future filled with uncertainties, government systems and administrators will need to communicate effectively with the trifecta of teachers, parents and children to ensure that their interactions continue to grow. Rocket Learning is working with multiple state governments to adopt home-learning as a priority on their agenda as they prepare to reopen schools. Here is a set of recommendations from our own experience.
While mass awareness campaigns on a safe return to school are critical, they must also highlight that a parent’s role in helping their children learn at home must continue, and they should now be closely involved with school. We conducted a control treatment study designed by researchers at IIM Ahmedabad and found that pre-school children participating in an effective digital learning program are almost 10% ahead in their cognitive development, literacy and numeracy skills than those who are not. Some states like Uttar Pradesh are conducting remedial sessions for the concepts that children should have learnt in the past year as revision. The state is also focusing on keeping parents informed about their child’s educational progress through weekly parent-teacher meetings. If we want children to ‘catch-up’ with the missed learning of 16 months, ‘home’ will have to complement the school in a child’s education.
We need to standardize children’s homework through a mix of print homework/parent booklets and digital content over WhatsApp/other apps that are in sync with the curriculum. Parent workbooks can be pictorial to act as a guide for parents with low educational qualifications, and also contain activities that they can do with their children at home like counting the number of onions (this needs no extra resources and can be done in a playful manner which doesn’t seem like an explicit learning activity). This will reinforce the learning concepts and form a continuum between school and home.
Initiatives launched in the past year to engage teachers with parents through Youtube live sessions, E-Choupals, socially-distanced parent-teacher meetings, and mohalla classes must continue because these will complement the learning in schools. Teachers’ efforts to engage parents can be incentivised by making these a part of their monitoring framework while parents can be recognized as ‘smart families’ for their initiative. This channel of communication would help teachers and parents exchange feedback on the child’s learning while the teachers can guide parents to support their children effectively.
It’s challenging to build a system to ensure children learn effectively and bridge their learning gaps without fully knowing what the future holds for us. However, we must broadly look to build the system around three key foundations: greater democratization of knowledge and resources for both teachers and learners, improved collaboration among educators and open source culture of sharing resources, and leverage technology to bridge the gap between school and home.
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