The COVID-19 pandemic has unarguably emerged as the biggest disruption in the field of school education in the last 100 years. It would take many more months before the medium- and long-term impact of school closure is fully comprehended. A joint report by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, ‘The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery’, released in early December 2021 had estimated that in the first 21 months of the pandemic, schools in countries around the world were either partially or fully closed for an average of 224 days. During the same period, schools in Indian States were closed for physical classes, for almost twice the duration, i.e., between 450 days to 480 days. Since the publication of this report, the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) of the SARS-CoV-2-led surge globally, and the resultant third wave of COVID-19 in India further delayed the re-opening of schools. By March or early April 2022, when re-opened, schools in India had cumulatively closed for physical classes for around 570 days to 600 days — one of the longest school closures in the world.
COVID-19 will linger
However, just when schools, parents and children have begun getting accustomed to regular offline classes, there are reports of an uptick in COVID-19 cases in Indian States including a few cases of children testing COVID-19 positive. This has again whipped up the demand from some sections of parents to move back to hybrid classes. There have been suggestions for the partial closure of schools or even temporary but full closure of schools, if there are a few cases of COVID-19 in a school. In fact, a few private schools have even moved to the hybrid mode.
