The hard lessons from India’s lost school year

260 million students in India are facing an unprecedented learning crisis after losing an entire year to the pandemic. With students forgetting foundational concepts, schools and teachers face an uphill battle to close the expanding learning gaps

Indian students are staring in face of acute learning losses from missing a whole academic year

The pandemic has further deepened the issue of learning losses, already an endemic challenge in India’s government schools

This has triggered efforts across the country to remediate students and put them back on track

But a one-off bridge course is a drop in the ocean. The future-proof classroom needs to look, and operate differently

Lalit Sharma, a primary school teacher from the Shamli district of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, will be put on poll duty soon for his local council elections.

Sharma simply doesn’t have the time. “In the middle of all our government duties, we also have to attend teacher training sessions on DIKSHA DIKSHA DIKSHA DIKSHA, or digital infrastructure for school education, is the Indian government's edtech platform , prepare online classes, and track down students we’ve lost complete touch with,” an exasperated Sharma says on a phone call with The Ken.

AUTHOR

Olina Banerji

Based in Delhi, Olina writes about mega-trends in urban mobility, education, skilling and the environment, with a focus on how institutions and innovations can help cities grow sustainably. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics, and has worked previously with India Today and global non-profit Ashoka.

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