India’s schoolchildren need their childhood back

Relevance: This article explains the need to reopen schools and recommendations to open them.

Synopsis:

India needs to stop asking whether schools are safe and start acknowledging that in-person school is essential

Introduction:

Malls, bars, restaurants, and some offices are open, but schools have been closed for 16 months and counting. But schools are not. This situation needs to change.

Why do we need to reopen schools?

• In-person school education teaches children to share, wait for their turn, negotiate, and compromise. Depriving these will affect societal learning and development.
• For children from economically weak backgrounds, schools are a key source of nutrition (Mid-day meal scheme).
• For some, schools serve as safe spaces from the chaos of their homes.
• Many children do not have educated parents or cannot afford home tutors, for them, the denial of education results in learning losses.
• Further, the researchers agree that children are at a low risk of developing severe COVID-19 compared to adults.
• Results of Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) Fourth National Sero-Prevalence Survey.
  • More than 80 percent of children from both urban and rural areas had antibodies. This means they were already infected and developed antibodies.

ICMR recommendation to open schools:

• It will be wise to open primary schools first and then secondary schools.
• Vaccinate all support staff and teachers before opening the schools

Suggestions to reopen schools:

• There are a host of recommendations on how to open schools safely, including by the World Bank, the Lancet COVID-19 Commission India Task Force etc. The government can follow them.
• Start schools in areas where the community level of infection is low.
• Declare school staff and teachers as frontline workers
• Public campaigns to make school staff and parents aware of the low risk of transmission in schools and low severity in children
• Upgrade school infrastructure to facilitate a hybrid system of learning so that if parents are not willing, they can continue with online learning
• Formulate and issue guidance on COVID-19 protocols to be adopted by schools
• Greater investment in healthcare facilities and implementation of systems to track the local levels of infections.
• Adopt a rational policy where 50% of students attend physical classes on certain days of the week, while the other 50% come to school on the remaining days.

Overall, India needs to stop asking whether schools are safe and start acknowledging that in-person school is essential.