-Inclusive Media for Change  The pandemic induced school closures have taken a huge toll on the right to education and learning levels of the school children coming from underprivileged sections. A survey covering 1,362 school children (enrolled in Classes 1-8) from 1,362 households, which was carried out in 15 states/ UTs in the month of August 2021 (first round), reveals the catastrophic consequences of prolonged school closure in the last one...

-The New Indian Express Report highlights the challenges of online classes; over 90% of underprivileged parents want schools to reopen BENGALURU: Continuous school closures and the limited reach of online/remote learning in the last 18 months have had “catastrophic consequences for children, on the academic, emotional, nutritional, social, and economic fronts,” states the National Coalition on Education Emergency (NCEE) in its September 5 report - ‘End Education Exclusion: Resume and Renew Education...

-Livemint.com Beset by poor technology access and ineffective online classes, students from poor households have lost reading abilities significantly, suggests a new survey covering 15 states. The losses are much more stark for students from marginalized communities With most Indian schools shut for the past year and a half, children from poor households, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds, are rapidly forgetting what they had learned before the pandemic, new survey data suggests. Less...

-Newsclick.in As schools remain closed, poor tribal villagers cannot afford smartphones and computers to aid their children’s online education, leaving this young population facing a precarious future. “I wish doors of the primary school are unlocked for our children after being closed for 16 months and if it does not happen the younger generation will permanently fall out of the education system,” says Dhaneshwari Devi of Dumbi village in Latehar district of...

The pandemic's first wave had a devastating impact on the livelihoods of rural workers in Bihar (including the self-employed) last year, according to a survey based research, jointly done by economists from Centre for Development Economics and Sustainability at Monash University, Australia and the New Delhi-based Institute for Human Development. A recent press note issued by the authors of the study shows that almost 94.4 percent of the households participating...