There is no government data to explain the impact of repeated school opening and closing on children reveals the Economic Survey 2021-22. “The pandemic has had a significant impact on the education system affecting lakhs of schools and colleges across India. Since the data from Ministry of Education is only available up to 2019-20, the impact of pandemic on enrolment and dropout rates during pandemic years, 2020 and 2021, could not be assessed through comprehensive official data,” stated the Economic Survey laid out by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on January 31.
Schools and colleges across India have been shut since mid-March 2020 and classes have been moved online. While schools were allowed to reopen in several states they have been shut again due to second and third waves. For the most part of the two years, students have been studying online. The government acknowledged that there have been challenges in “continuity of education”, no centralised data by government records were shared to understand how deep the learning losses run.
The document revealed ahead of the budget added, “it is difficult to gauge the real-time impact of repeated lockdowns on education sector because the latest available comprehensive official data dates back to 2019-20.” Citing data from the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2021, the survey said, “enrolment in the age cohort of 15-16 years continued to improve as the number of not enrolled children in this age group declined from 12.1 percent in 2018 to 6.6 per cent in 2021”
However, ASER (Rural) report also found that during the pandemic, children ‘not currently enrolled in schools’ increased from 2.5 per cent in 2018 to 4.6 per cent in 2021. The enrolment decline was relatively large among the younger age group of 7-10 year. The decline of enrolment for younger boys was higher than girls, the report stated.
Despite the pandemic, enrolment in age cohort of 15-16 years continued to improve as number of not enrolled children in this age group declined from 12.1 percent in 2018 to 6.6 per cent in 2021.
ASER report also found that during pandemics, children in rural areas have moved out of private to government schools. As per the ASER study, existing digital divide, however, exacerbated the equity in access to education. Although the availability of smartphones has increased from 36.5 percent in 2018 to 67.6 percent in 2021, students in lower grade found it difficult to do online activities compared to higher-grade students. Non-availability of smartphones, non-availability of phone for child to use, and network or connectivity issues were the challenges faced by children, the survey said quoting the report.
Not just education, the Economic Survey also acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions on the movement of individuals “spread significantly impacted livelihoods.” Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the urban labour market had shown signs of improvement in terms of labour force participation rate (LFPR), Worker population ratio (WPR) and Unemployment rates (UR). However, the nationwide lockdown imposed in late March 2020 adversely impacted the urban labour market. In the first quarter of 2020-21, the unemployment rate for urban sector rose to 20.8 percent. The LFPR and WPR in the urban sector also declined significantly during this quarter, according to the Economic Survey.
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