School meals ensure nutrition for millions of vulnerable children across the world. Almost 370 million children worldwide are covered by school feeding programmes. While 100 million school children benefitted from the noon meal scheme in India prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, countries like Brazil (48 million), China (44 million), South Africa (9 million) and Nigeria (9 million) too run similar programmes for school children. However, an estimated 39 billion in-school...

-The Hindu Mega residential schools are herding in large numbers of tribal children, ‘mainstreaming’ them rather than preserving their language and heritage Tasvir, a young poet-author at Muskaan, a learning centre in Bhopal, tells us how writing can be used to empower his historically stigmatised community: “Pardhis have a rich history. But the way others label us today is wrong. I believe we should start writing and publish our stories. Our lives...

-The Indian Express No announcements on recovering learning loss, support for children at risk of not returning to school. The government’s proposed spending on education next year has been cut by Rs 6,000 crore at a time when the Covid-19-induced disruption is expected to have exacerbated students’ learning loss and school dropout rates. The total education budget was slashed by 6 per cent from Rs 99,311 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 93,224 crore...

-The Indian Express Although there has been a lot of public discussion on digital modes of education for school children, online and video classes catered largely to urban or educated elite populations whose children went to private schools. In India, school closures post the spread of the pandemic started as early as March 2020. As months went by, concerns increased: Would learning levels drop, existing inequalities deepen? The Annual Status of Education...

-Review of Agrarian Studies In 2019, the National Statistical Office undertook India’s first-ever national time-use survey, the results of which have recently been published (GoI 2020). Time Use in India 2019 (henceforth, TUS19) provides information on time spent by men and women in rural and urban areas of all States in different activities during one full day. From such a survey, we should be able to gauge the time spent on...