The prolonged closure of schools after the sudden and totally unplanned lockdown in March 2020 to a possible re-opening at the end of September 2021 (a period of 18 months) has grabbed some media attention at last. Following the release of the Emergency Report of School Education (ERSE) based on the School Children’s Online Offline Learning (SCHOOL) Survey, conducted in August 2021, news coverage has gone beyond reproducing political handouts extolling the virtues of the New Education Policy (NEP 2020).
The key findings of the first round of the survey covered 1,362 households, and 1,362 students studying in Classes 1 to 8.
The focus was on “relatively deprived hamlets and bastis where children generally attend government schools”. It is worth noting that about one-fifth of the sampled students were studying in private schools at the time of the March lockdown.
However, many private schools tried to continue with the same fees by turning to online classes. Most parents, already suffering reduced incomes, were reluctant to pay the fees when students were staying at home and they were also required to meet additional charges under the heads of smartphones and recharges.
Further, online education did “not work well for their children” possibly because of poor connectivity (65 per cent for rural areas and 57 per cent for urban areas), an absence of a conducive environment at home and lack of unrestricted use of the family smartphone.
As a result, 26 per cent of the sampled children left private schools for government schools, and many parents claimed they were waiting for private schools to give them transfer certificates for shifting their children to government schools as well.
Almost 60 per cent of the sampled families are rural and about 60 per cent are Dalit and Adivasi. So the survey focusses on the most underprivileged and consequently its findings have turned out to be not merely “bleak” but indeed “catastrophic”.
Only 8 per cent of rural children were studying online and only 28 per cent were studying “regularly” both online and offline.
Thirty-seven per cent were not studying at all during the period of the survey. The comparable figures for urban areas were 47 per cent studying “regularly” and 19 per cent not studying at all.
Almost half the children, 42 per cent urban and 48 per cent rural, were unable to read more than a few words.
For a country proclaiming 98 per cent enrolment with governments taking credit for this achievement, these are indeed shocking figures. This educational emergency is particularly severe given the huge numbers involved.
A recent UNICEF report, Rapid Assessment of Learning During School Closures in the Context of Covid-19, (2021), states that school closures have impacted approximately 286 million children from pre-primary to upper (senior) secondary and this has added to the 6 million who were out of school even before the pandemic struck.
The disruption has been marked by the effect of sharp inequalities already entrenched in the system. Among the underprivileged, Dalit and Adivasi families are much worse off.
Only 4 per cent of rural Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribes students study online on a regular basis, compared with 15 per cent of other rural children.
Forty-three per cent of S.C./S.T. students are not able to study at all, as opposed to only 25 per cent of dominant caste students.
Eighty-three per cent of S.C./S.T. parents feel that their child’s ability to read and write has declined, as opposed to 66 per cent dominant caste parents.
The example provided in the survey of Kutmu village of Latehar district (Jharkhand), records discrimination in education. Although most of the households are of Dalits and Adivasis, the teacher belongs to one of the few dominant caste families in the village. None of the Dalit and Adivasi children interviewed in Kutmu were able to read fluently and parents spoke bitterly about the irresponsible attitude of the teacher.
Increase in child labour
There is a rising incidence of child labour in the 10-14 age group and a majority of the girls are doing some household work.
In rural areas about one-fourth of the girls had also done unpaid work in family fields in the preceding three months, and a substantial 8 per cent had done some paid work.
The survey shows that an overwhelming majority of parents, including 65 per cent urban parents with “online children”, felt their child’s reading and writing abilities declined during the lockdown.
Although 44 per cent parents in urban areas felt their children had adequate online access as compared with 25 per cent in rural areas, it is significant that 46 per cent children in urban areas found online classes/videos difficult to follow, which was close to the 43 per cent rural children who felt the same.
Distance learning through TV, Doordarshan and feature phones found a dismal ‘response’ of less than 3 to 5 per cent (urban) and less than 1 per cent (rural) on an occasional basis.
Education demands much more than mere technology. It requires imagination, socialisation and sensitivity, as well as a deep respect for the constitutional principles of equality and social justice.
How the “offline children” fared
What were the conditions prevailing among the “offline children”? In the rural areas, almost half of the children who were not studying online were not studying at all during the survey. Irregularity was also a feature of their attempts at self-study, and home study with help, as well as study with classmates.
Part of the reason for this appears to be a lack of planning for providing support and engaging with students.
In some States, such as Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, an effort was made to provide for some classes in schools or mohallas, give worksheets as homework to students, and to have teachers visiting homes to advise students and parents on how to occupy students not just sometimes but regularly at home.
However, this appears not to have sustained itself too well. Only 5 per cent urban children had the teacher come home to inquire and advise; the figure was 12 per cent for rural children.
A phone call outreach was made to 36 per cent urban children but only to 12 per cent rural children. Three per cent urban children and 2 per cent rural children had a teacher come home to help. But 39 per cent urban children and 25 per cent rural children did receive homework.
Most other States, including Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, were unable to do even this much and pretty much left families and children to cope on their own.
Fifty-one per cent students in urban areas and 58 per cent in rural areas had not even met their teacher(s) in the 30 days before the survey, which generated further problems. Particularly, but not only in urban areas with confined homes, it was a “burden for children to be home” all day, and yet their wandering out-of-doors also caused anxiety.
For working mothers, the closure of schools was a source of deep concern. For the students who struggled with the need to labour on the one hand and on the other to cope with the boredom of idleness with restricted resources, phone addiction and aggression were reported by parents who were worried about growing violent reactions.
However, the survey also “uncovered an impressive range of initiatives by caring teachers”. They convened small group classes in the open or even in their homes, recharged phones or shared their own phones with students who could not afford the expenses, and even helped them with their studies through home visits. These valuable inputs were a drop in the ocean in the face of the systemic lack of concern, planning and resources.
A final blow for students and their families during the pandemic was not just the school closures but the immediate discontinuation of midday meals and the nutritional loss suffered as a result.
About 80 per cent of parents with children studying in government schools received some rice or wheat (often with complaints that the quantities distributed were less than the entitlement of 100 grammes daily per child) during the previous three months. A small minority received some cash. Others received nothing as the provisions made were both “sporadic and haphazard”.
The SCHOOL survey showed that the pandemic to a great extent exacerbated the consequences of what was already a crisis-ridden system of school education. It certainly did not create these conditions. The government school system in general has failed to provide anything like learning because the students and teachers alike are victims of a prolonged neglect.
Denied adequate investments by governments for providing infrastructure, permanent trained faculty, and support for a student population drawn from increasingly deprived and marginalised sections of society, one can only hope that the results of the SCHOOL survey will act as a major “wake-up call” to those who have either been sleeping over the system’s calamitous descent into disastrous inefficiency, or have in fact contributed to this for the benefit of just about everyone but the children of this country.
What will it mean if schools are not merely to re-open by the end of September but to actually embark on a process of renewal?
Firstly, the re-opening of lakhs of neighbourhood schools that have been “rationalised” and closed over the past three or four years. They will be needed, and there is an opportunity to revive them given the big shift to government schools seen during the pandemic.
Secondly, urgently upgrading infrastructure to come up to the prescribed norms and quality. The failure to invest in our future generations for decades must be corrected and policies aimed at depriving the education system must be immediately reversed.
Thirdly, a full complement of the trained faculty required for establishing a completely free and compulsory education system from ECCE upwards to Class XII needs to be put in place.
Fourthly, an adequate nutritional programme requires to be implemented by a trained cadre maintained specially for this task.
And finally, devising and engaging in a learning process involving faculty and students in all schools to determine how they will recognise and overcome the problems posed by the long lockout from school. This is crucial as children who are not going to school are being promoted to the next year and confronted with a higher programme of study.
A turning point?
This is an important moment and a chance for breaking out of the dysfunctional pre-pandemic mode and beginning anew. Not merely remedial but rejuvenating. Now is the time for making a sustained and serious effort at developing the long overdue process of continuous and constant evaluation.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.
On March 31, the World Economic Forum (WEF) released its annual Gender Gap Report 2021. The Global Gender Gap report is an annual report released by the WEF. The gender gap is the difference between women and men as reflected in social, political, intellectual, cultural, or economic attainments or attitudes. The gap between men and women across health, education, politics, and economics widened for the first time since records began in 2006.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]No need to remember all the data, only pick out few important ones to use in your answers.
The Global gender gap index aims to measure this gap in four key areas : health, education, economics, and politics. It surveys economies to measure gender disparity by collating and analyzing data that fall under four indices : economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
The 2021 Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity. The index aims to serve as a compass to track progress on relative gaps between women and men in health, education, economy, and politics.
Although no country has achieved full gender parity, the top two countries (Iceland and Finland) have closed at least 85% of their gap, and the remaining seven countries (Lithuania, Namibia, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Rwanda, and Ireland) have closed at least 80% of their gap. Geographically, the global top 10 continues to be dominated by Nordic countries, with —Iceland, Norway, Finland, and Sweden—in the top five.
The top 10 is completed by one country from Asia Pacific (New Zealand 4th), two Sub-Saharan countries (Namibia, 6th and Rwanda, 7th, one country from Eastern Europe (the new entrant to the top 10, Lithuania, 8th), and another two Western European countries (Ireland, 9th, and Switzerland, 10th, another country in the top-10 for the first time).There is a relatively equitable distribution of available income, resources, and opportunities for men and women in these countries. The tremendous gender gaps are identified primarily in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
Here, we can discuss the overall global gender gap scores across the index’s four main components : Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment.
The indicators of the four main components are
(1) Economic Participation and Opportunity:
o Labour force participation rate,
o wage equality for similar work,
o estimated earned income,
o Legislators, senior officials, and managers,
o Professional and technical workers.
(2) Educational Attainment:
o Literacy rate (%)
o Enrollment in primary education (%)
o Enrollment in secondary education (%)
o Enrollment in tertiary education (%).
(3) Health and Survival:
o Sex ratio at birth (%)
o Healthy life expectancy (years).
(4) Political Empowerment:
o Women in Parliament (%)
o Women in Ministerial positions (%)
o Years with a female head of State (last 50 years)
o The share of tenure years.
The objective is to shed light on which factors are driving the overall average decline in the global gender gap score. The analysis results show that this year’s decline is mainly caused by a reversal in performance on the Political Empowerment gap.
Global Trends and Outcomes:
– Globally, this year, i.e., 2021, the average distance completed to gender parity gap is 68% (This means that the remaining gender gap to close stands at 32%) a step back compared to 2020 (-0.6 percentage points). These figures are mainly driven by a decline in the performance of large countries. On its current trajectory, it will now take 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide.
– The gender gap in Political Empowerment remains the largest of the four gaps tracked, with only 22% closed to date, having further widened since the 2020 edition of the report by 2.4 percentage points. Across the 156 countries covered by the index, women represent only 26.1% of some 35,500 Parliament seats and 22.6% of over 3,400 Ministers worldwide. In 81 countries, there has never been a woman head of State as of January 15, 2021. At the current rate of progress, the World Economic Forum estimates that it will take 145.5 years to attain gender parity in politics.
– The gender gap in Economic Participation and Opportunity remains the second-largest of the four key gaps tracked by the index. According to this year’s index results, 58% of this gap has been closed so far. The gap has seen marginal improvement since the 2020 edition of the report, and as a result, we estimate that it will take another 267.6 years to close.
– Gender gaps in Educational Attainment and Health and Survival are nearly closed. In Educational Attainment, 95% of this gender gap has been closed globally, with 37 countries already attaining gender parity. However, the ‘last mile’ of progress is proceeding slowly. The index estimates that it will take another 14.2 years to close this gap on its current trajectory completely.
In Health and Survival, 96% of this gender gap has been closed, registering a marginal decline since last year (not due to COVID-19), and the time to close this gap remains undefined. For both education and health, while progress is higher than economy and politics in the global data, there are important future implications of disruptions due to the pandemic and continued variations in quality across income, geography, race, and ethnicity.
India-Specific Findings:
India had slipped 28 spots to rank 140 out of the 156 countries covered. The pandemic causing a disproportionate impact on women jeopardizes rolling back the little progress made in the last decades-forcing more women to drop off the workforce and leaving them vulnerable to domestic violence.
India’s poor performance on the Global Gender Gap report card hints at a serious wake-up call and learning lessons from the Nordic region for the Government and policy makers.
Within the 156 countries covered, women hold only 26 percent of Parliamentary seats and 22 percent of Ministerial positions. India, in some ways, reflects this widening gap, where the number of Ministers declined from 23.1 percent in 2019 to 9.1 percent in 2021. The number of women in Parliament stands low at 14.4 percent. In India, the gender gap has widened to 62.5 %, down from 66.8% the previous year.
It is mainly due to women’s inadequate representation in politics, technical and leadership roles, a decrease in women’s labor force participation rate, poor healthcare, lagging female to male literacy ratio, and income inequality.
The gap is the widest on the political empowerment dimension, with economic participation and opportunity being next in line. However, the gap on educational attainment and health and survival has been practically bridged.
India is the third-worst performer among South Asian countries, with Pakistan and Afghanistan trailing and Bangladesh being at the top. The report states that the country fared the worst in political empowerment, regressing from 23.9% to 9.1%.
Its ranking on the health and survival dimension is among the five worst performers. The economic participation and opportunity gap saw a decline of 3% compared to 2020, while India’s educational attainment front is in the 114th position.
India has deteriorated to 51st place from 18th place in 2020 on political empowerment. Still, it has slipped to 155th position from 150th position in 2020 on health and survival, 151st place in economic participation and opportunity from 149th place, and 114th place for educational attainment from 112th.
In 2020 reports, among the 153 countries studied, India is the only country where the economic gender gap of 64.6% is larger than the political gender gap of 58.9%. In 2021 report, among the 156 countries, the economic gender gap of India is 67.4%, 3.8% gender gap in education, 6.3% gap in health and survival, and 72.4% gender gap in political empowerment. In health and survival, the gender gap of the sex ratio at birth is above 9.1%, and healthy life expectancy is almost the same.
Discrimination against women has also been reflected in Health and Survival subindex statistics. With 93.7% of this gap closed to date, India ranks among the bottom five countries in this subindex. The wide sex ratio at birth gaps is due to the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices. Besides, more than one in four women has faced intimate violence in her lifetime.The gender gap in the literacy rate is above 20.1%.
Yet, gender gaps persist in literacy : one-third of women are illiterate (34.2%) than 17.6% of men. In political empowerment, globally, women in Parliament is at 128th position and gender gap of 83.2%, and 90% gap in a Ministerial position. The gap in wages equality for similar work is above 51.8%. On health and survival, four large countries Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and China, fare poorly, with millions of women there not getting the same access to health as men.
The pandemic has only slowed down in its tracks the progress India was making towards achieving gender parity. The country urgently needs to focus on “health and survival,” which points towards a skewed sex ratio because of the high incidence of gender-based sex-selective practices and women’s economic participation. Women’s labour force participation rate and the share of women in technical roles declined in 2020, reducing the estimated earned income of women, one-fifth of men.
Learning from the Nordic region, noteworthy participation of women in politics, institutions, and public life is the catalyst for transformational change. Women need to be equal participants in the labour force to pioneer the societal changes the world needs in this integral period of transition.
Every effort must be directed towards achieving gender parallelism by facilitating women in leadership and decision-making positions. Social protection programmes should be gender-responsive and account for the differential needs of women and girls. Research and scientific literature also provide unequivocal evidence that countries led by women are dealing with the pandemic more effectively than many others.
Gendered inequality, thereby, is a global concern. India should focus on targeted policies and earmarked public and private investments in care and equalized access. Women are not ready to wait for another century for equality. It’s time India accelerates its efforts and fight for an inclusive, equal, global recovery.
India will not fully develop unless both women and men are equally supported to reach their full potential. There are risks, violations, and vulnerabilities women face just because they are women. Most of these risks are directly linked to women’s economic, political, social, and cultural disadvantages in their daily lives. It becomes acute during crises and disasters.
With the prevalence of gender discrimination, and social norms and practices, women become exposed to the possibility of child marriage, teenage pregnancy, child domestic work, poor education and health, sexual abuse, exploitation, and violence. Many of these manifestations will not change unless women are valued more.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]2021 WEF Global Gender Gap report, which confirmed its 2016 finding of a decline in worldwide progress towards gender parity.
Over 2.8 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. As many as 104 countries still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 countries have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and it is astonishing that a handful of countries still allow husbands to legally stop their wives from working.
Globally, women’s participation in the labour force is estimated at 63% (as against 94% of men who participate), but India’s is at a dismal 25% or so currently. Most women are in informal and vulnerable employment—domestic help, agriculture, etc—and are always paid less than men.
Recent reports from Assam suggest that women workers in plantations are paid much less than men and never promoted to supervisory roles. The gender wage gap is about 24% globally, and women have lost far more jobs than men during lockdowns.
The problem of gender disparity is compounded by hurdles put up by governments, society and businesses: unequal access to social security schemes, banking services, education, digital services and so on, even as a glass ceiling has kept leadership roles out of women’s reach.
Yes, many governments and businesses had been working on parity before the pandemic struck. But the global gender gap, defined by differences reflected in the social, political, intellectual, cultural and economic attainments or attitudes of men and women, will not narrow in the near future without all major stakeholders working together on a clear agenda—that of economic growth by inclusion.
The WEF report estimates 135 years to close the gap at our current rate of progress based on four pillars: educational attainment, health, economic participation and political empowerment.
India has slipped from rank 112 to 140 in a single year, confirming how hard women were hit by the pandemic. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only two Asian countries that fared worse.
Here are a few things we must do:
One, frame policies for equal-opportunity employment. Use technology and artificial intelligence to eliminate biases of gender, caste, etc, and select candidates at all levels on merit. Numerous surveys indicate that women in general have a better chance of landing jobs if their gender is not known to recruiters.
Two, foster a culture of gender sensitivity. Take a review of current policies and move from gender-neutral to gender-sensitive. Encourage and insist on diversity and inclusion at all levels, and promote more women internally to leadership roles. Demolish silos to let women grab potential opportunities in hitherto male-dominant roles. Work-from-home has taught us how efficiently women can manage flex-timings and productivity.
Three, deploy corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds for the education and skilling of women and girls at the bottom of the pyramid. CSR allocations to toilet building, the PM-Cares fund and firms’ own trusts could be re-channelled for this.
Four, get more women into research and development (R&D) roles. A study of over 4,000 companies found that more women in R&D jobs resulted in radical innovation. It appears women score far higher than men in championing change. If you seek growth from affordable products and services for low-income groups, women often have the best ideas.
Five, break barriers to allow progress. Cultural and structural issues must be fixed. Unconscious biases and discrimination are rampant even in highly-esteemed organizations. Establish fair and transparent human resource policies.
Six, get involved in local communities to engage them. As Michael Porter said, it is not possible for businesses to sustain long-term shareholder value without ensuring the welfare of the communities they exist in. It is in the best interest of enterprises to engage with local communities to understand and work towards lowering cultural and other barriers in society. It will also help connect with potential customers, employees and special interest groups driving the gender-equity agenda and achieve better diversity.