The school reopening after a month-long break due to the third wave of COVID-19 cases in Hyderabad turned into a non-event due to amavasya or new moon night. A large number of parents refused to send their children to school due to the belief that amavasya is inauspicious.
“I will go to school from tomorrow. My parents didn’t send me to school because of amavasya,” said a student of Class II of MPPS Hyderguda. “We had only 30% attendance in high school today, as many parents didn’t send children to school even though we messaged them about classes between 9.15 a.m. and 1 p.m.,” said Sabitha, a teacher at Gnanaprabha School in Nalanda Colony. The school has 250 students on its rolls. Schools in Telangana were closed temporarily on January 8 as the number of cases of COVID-19 showed an increasing trend.
Government-run schools and private schools across the city reported low attendance. “The enrolment has dropped by 50% in private schools. So today’s attendance would be 25% what used to be our regular attendance,” informed Uma Maheswara Rao, president of Telangana Recognised Schools Management Association.
Private schools have lost a large chunk of students who have shifted to government-run schools due to straitened economic conditions of their parents. “Many parents are not sending children to schools in the hope that the government will promote them to the next class and they don’t have to pay fees. This is a short-sighted policy that will have a big impact on children later,” said Mr. Rao.
The dip in enrolment is a nation-wide phenomenon, as noted by the Economic Survey–2021-22. In 2018, only 0.6% of children in the 6-14 age bracket were not enrolled in schools in Telangana. This number leapt to 11.8% in 2021, according to the Annual Status of Education Report–2021. Nationally, the percentage of students who have not enrolled in school has also increased from 2.5% in 2018 to 4.6% in 2021.
