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As Pakistan reopens schools thousands of students remain unimpressed, even angry
No one is interested in representing the educational hopes of the country’s youth
Away from the rough and tumble of politics is an issue that touches the lives of millions of young students but can’t seem to get a place on the radar of the country’s policymakers. It is the restart of educational activities in the presence of the looming even if greatly-reduced threat of the return of Covid-19.
Generally, Pakistan has not done badly during the pandemic. When most of the more resourceful countries are still bending and even breaking their backs trying to tame the virus, the country has gone for a full-throttle reopening of activity in every sphere of national life. Schools, colleges and universities, too, are limping back to regular teaching hours. This week the final leap of faith — reopening junior classes — will be taken. Yet unlike business, commerce, trade and travel, the return to education has not been smooth or worry-free.
The COVID-forced digital learning, while much talked about as a value-addition to tools of teaching and learning, has not been a national success. The pupils in the majority of resource-starved schools had no clue about the use educational technology nor was there any infrastructure to provide them with a crash course in distance learning. As a result, a vast majority — general estimates are about 70 per cent of the total school-going children — remained off the education grid during the past six months of the Covid-19 shutdown.
This introduced a new disparity in an already uneven educational terrain, which, according to a Unicef report, has deep structural problems. With the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children (about 22.8m or 44 per cent of the total population in the age bracket of 5-16) and extreme educational deprivation along gender and poverty lines, the setback to millions of students is big. Parents have pulled children out of school, and as always this has affected girls more than the boys.
With the schools reopening, these problems should have been addressed. But this isn’t the case. At present Pakistan’s schools are using the so-called hybrid model, alternating regular school hours with distance learning and dividing students into groups that are required to attend classes strictly under Covid-19 standard operating guidelines on their designated days. Predictably, not every school can pull it off. Many are housed in shack-like structures. Others have severe shortage of teachers. Yet others have staff that is underpaid and has no motivation to measure up a challenge that requires spending extra time and heavy energy expenditure.
gulfnews.com
No one is interested in representing the educational hopes of the country’s youth
Away from the rough and tumble of politics is an issue that touches the lives of millions of young students but can’t seem to get a place on the radar of the country’s policymakers. It is the restart of educational activities in the presence of the looming even if greatly-reduced threat of the return of Covid-19.
Generally, Pakistan has not done badly during the pandemic. When most of the more resourceful countries are still bending and even breaking their backs trying to tame the virus, the country has gone for a full-throttle reopening of activity in every sphere of national life. Schools, colleges and universities, too, are limping back to regular teaching hours. This week the final leap of faith — reopening junior classes — will be taken. Yet unlike business, commerce, trade and travel, the return to education has not been smooth or worry-free.
The COVID-forced digital learning, while much talked about as a value-addition to tools of teaching and learning, has not been a national success. The pupils in the majority of resource-starved schools had no clue about the use educational technology nor was there any infrastructure to provide them with a crash course in distance learning. As a result, a vast majority — general estimates are about 70 per cent of the total school-going children — remained off the education grid during the past six months of the Covid-19 shutdown.
This introduced a new disparity in an already uneven educational terrain, which, according to a Unicef report, has deep structural problems. With the world’s second-highest number of out-of-school children (about 22.8m or 44 per cent of the total population in the age bracket of 5-16) and extreme educational deprivation along gender and poverty lines, the setback to millions of students is big. Parents have pulled children out of school, and as always this has affected girls more than the boys.
With the schools reopening, these problems should have been addressed. But this isn’t the case. At present Pakistan’s schools are using the so-called hybrid model, alternating regular school hours with distance learning and dividing students into groups that are required to attend classes strictly under Covid-19 standard operating guidelines on their designated days. Predictably, not every school can pull it off. Many are housed in shack-like structures. Others have severe shortage of teachers. Yet others have staff that is underpaid and has no motivation to measure up a challenge that requires spending extra time and heavy energy expenditure.
There are other problems too. Curriculum has had to be cutdown considerably to fit into limited teaching hours available. This has huge learning costs. Alternate school days disable students from finding the momentum and routine of showing up for regular classes. Most miss out both categories of learning.
As Pakistan reopens schools thousands of students remain unimpressed, even angry
No one is interested in representing the educational hopes of the country’s youth
gulfnews.com
