For God's sake, open the schools!

I should like to request frequent visitors to look up my other blog occasionally. Believe me, all of you will find something to smile over (thoughtfully) – and to many of you a different, unexpected side of my character will be revealed. That poor blog is neglected, partly because the paucity of visits and comments discourages me from posting too often.

There is, thank God, a (very slow, hesitant) start with reopening schools across the country. Many states, including UP, are apparently going to open up with senior classes from August 16. There is also a still-soft chorus, but daily growing louder, that all the other states follow suit, quickly. I read in today’s paper that a class 12 student (obviously prompted by his parents) in Delhi has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to urge the governments to reopen schools, saying that not only have millions of children suffered enormous academic losses since March 2020 owing to the endless shutdown, but are struggling with very disturbing and maybe irremediable mental health issues (a grim reality I can personally witness among my own pupils). This request is now being echoed everywhere, even from very high places. However, our own state government is still dragging its feet, almost unwilling to deal with the issue at all (‘we’ll think about it after pujo’). For heaven’s sake, why?

Surely one can no longer believe that children’s lives will be put at great risk if they start going to school? They are going everywhere – from crowded shopping malls to tourist spots and wedding feasts, their parents who go out to work are bringing home the infection, and nothing is happening to them, but they will die of Covid if they go to school? Contrary to all the evidence from all corners of the world, seeing that most other countries have kept schools open almost throughout the year? Why on earth can’t schools be opened tentatively but right now, the way I (and tens of thousands of tutors around the country) have done, ready to be closed down at a day’s notice if the infection graph starts soaring again? Can’t the authorities still realize the horrible damage* being done? Does it really need to be spelt out? Why after Durga pujo, still more than a month and a half away?

One thing should be remembered: barring the most benighted, no child in India goes to school any more with the expectation of being ‘educated’. They attend because a fairly old custom says they have to, and because they have to sit for examinations, and, most importantly, because they can socialize with their peers and get some outdoor exercise and extra-curricular activity. Most of their learning, such as it is, happens at home, by themselves and with the help of private tutors. We have been trying to ignore this open secret, this elephant in the room, for far too long. Bring them back to school so that they can get a reasonably healthy childhood, period.

Here is a link to an article suggesting why some other people think, just like me, that the real reason for the indefinitely prolonged shutdown is something very sinister, or at least very sad.

*This article reports a study which has tried to estimate the kind of damage that has already been done. (Alas, the reporter herself cannot spell. I hope the reader is observant enough to find out the howlers. Remember: spelling is the most basic proof of literacy).