Equipping Classrooms Of Today: Digital Tools, Empathy Must Lead The Way

Dr Bharat S Pandya Nov 11, 2022

The ‘School chalein hum’ TV campaign run by the Govt of India in the early 2000s was a clarion call – to promote and make basic education universally accessible to all children. Twenty years later, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, more than 200 million children in the country enrolled in elementary and secondary schools were compelled to stay home due to lockdowns. From the shift to virtual education to a significant loss of learning among students during the pandemic, the dynamics and quality of school education have just begun to recover. Virtual learning took its toll on our school-going kids - 78 per cent of students found learning at home burdensome, at least 38 per cent of them faced difficulties in learning, and 24 per cent had no digital devices at home. The result – when compared to the 2017 National Achievement Survey (NAS), NAS 2021 shows that the average performance of students in classes 3-10 has decreased significantly. Apart from this, pre-Covid, over six million children in India were not even in the system in the first place. And in 2021, an estimated 286+ million children up to class 6 were out of school in the country.

These findings highlight some key challenges that the Indian education system faces today, bringing our focus to two goals: One, to continue working on enrolling millions of children who still fall through the wide net of our public education system and two, to improve learning outcomes among children who are enrolled in schools.

Ensuring a long-term quality education for every child in India

The digital divide meant that children of rural households and migrant workers were most vulnerable to pandemic-induced remote learning protocols. But while dropouts were significant in the lockdown, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021 shows improvements in school enrollments. Among 5-6-year-olds in rural India, the jump is about 12 per cent when compared to 2018. Even the Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER), including rural and urban students which was 101.3 per cent in 2018-19 has increased to 103.3 per cent in 2020-21.

The crux of the solution is not merely ensuring children enrol into school, but also attending and continuing schooling. Data for higher grades show that retaining students is getting difficult. The GER for classes 6-8 was 90.9 per cent, while for classes 9-10 and 11-12 was 79.3 per cent and 56.5 per cent respectively – indicating the increased dropout rate after class 8. So, to retain students, our schools must first, have effective and sufficient infrastructure to make school a safe and comfortable space. This could include developing alternative, free, community education centres for children of migrant labourers, maintaining clean washrooms, and helping girls with menstrual hygiene. A case at hand is the benefits

seen in more than 30,000 schools in the country because of the implementation of WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) facilities by Rotary. Done with an aim to improve school environments and children’s access to basic needs, this initiative aligns with the government’s Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan launched under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Under this program, a gender-segregated toilet block was set up in the Govt Primary school in Gejha Village, Uttar Pradesh. Additionally, teachers were trained to supervise daily water and sanitation activities and educate children about proper toilet use and handwashing with soap. The children were also encouraged to keep up hygienic practices at school and at home. The result – enrolment at the school increased by 25 per cent, attendance increased by 10 per cent, there was no more open defecation near the school premises and the school’s dropout rate decreased.

Second, schools should track each student’s learning levels carefully and have fluid systems to help them catch up, reenter or redirect education based on their interests. As per the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), enrollment and participation will only improve if the quality of education is good – with a relevant curriculum that will be engaging and useful at work in adulthood.

Refining the learning experience in schools with digital education

Leveraging digital tools for student development will equip our children with a competitive edge in the global workplace. Thanks to the pandemic, we now know the potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in strengthening education systems, knowledge dissemination, and improving access and quality of learning. Recognising this, Rotary supported the Govt of India to provide e-learning modules for classes 1-12 through 12 national television channels of NCERT and through the Government’s national mobile app, DIKSHA.

As the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) rightly points out, technology and education at all levels are indeed bi-directional. So, to make India a digital-first nation, we must use tech tools right from primary schooling. The Education 4.0 report suggests that personalised, context-specific, bite-sized content such as short videos, flip books and audio stories, along with parental supervision can improve the Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) landscape.

Training teachers to get them future-ready

A survey conducted with more than 500 teachers and approximately 1,700 students of 10 schools in Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) in India during our first lockdown, showed that the absence of face-to-face interaction between teachers and students affects the teaching-learning experience.

We must thus bear in mind that no matter how quickly digital learning takes off, the teacher will remain pivotal to the learning process. Hence, there is a need to help teachers - the ones on the frontlines of our education system - with a tech-powered, updated teachers’ training program. This can be effective in helping them learn new and imaginative ways of teaching. The training cannot be rigid, rather, an adaptive model that is sensitive to teachers’ experiences in using tech for learning.

Providing an adequate focus on social wellbeing

Among children, sound mental health has always played a key role in achieving developmental milestones. But given the lockdowns, Covid-19 deaths, and long periods of social isolation, good mental health has become all the more important. Hence, on this year’s National Education Day, it’s important we address the social and emotional (SEL) well-being of our children and teach them SEL skills in school. Instead of focusing on just curriculum, teachers and parents should encourage interactions with kids to understand their fears, worries and thoughts. In short, an important step towards the success of Among children, sound mental health has always played a key role in achieving developmental milestones. But given the lockdowns, Covid-19 deaths, and long periods of social isolation, good mental health has become all the more important. Hence, on this year’s National Education Day, it’s important we address the social and emotional (SEL) well-being of our children and teach them SEL skills in school. Instead of focusing on just curriculum, teachers and parents should encourage interactions with kids to understand their fears, worries and thoughts. In short, an important step towards the success of educating our kids will be to consistently create a caring, innovative, comforting, institution of a ‘school’ and make it accessible to every single child in the country.