It was on March 24, 2020 when education took a backseat as the country went under a lockdown necessitated by the global pandemic – Covid-19. Almost 286 million children were directly affected by the closure of about 1.5 million schools imparting primary and secondary education, 993 universities, 39931 colleges and 10725 stand alone educational institutions. Though initially announced for only 21 days, the lockdown had to be extended till May 31, 2020 and the process of unlocking started from June. However, the educational institutions have not been able to restart completely as many are still opting to continue with their online classes as well as a majority of parents, guardians are reluctant to send their children, wards to attend physical classes with newer strains of the virus still making headlines. This, no doubt has disrupted the entire education sector and may leave a lifelong mark in the lives of the students. Putting students back on track would need great efforts and special plans, which is unfortunately still not a priority area for our government.
Though the online classes tried to compensate for the loss of physical classes, it did not prove to be much effective in a country like India. Here, the rural areas are still reeling under poor or no internet connectivity. Additionally, the larger chunk of the Indian population belongs to the middle class, hence it becomes difficult for students to access mobiles, tablets or computers and electricity is also one of the major problems in India especially with frequent load shedding and power cuts. For instance, a large number of students from rural areas in and around Umiam, Meghalaya were seen attending online classes and examinations over the fly over in Umiam. This clearly points out why digital education failed miserably to compensate for physical classes. It is saddening to note that the situation has not improved even after one year. A recent UNICEF study has estimated that about 7 million school students in India will become permanent dropouts. Almost half of them would be girls in primary education.

The education system in India is already plagued with too many issues including school dropouts, learning deficiencies, teacher absenteeism, unavailability of teachers, unacceptable level of low teacher-student ratio, gender disparity, lack of educational infrastructure, materials etc. And now the pandemic has just multiplied the woes and in a manner of saying created a digital divide between the urban and rural students. Interestingly, the New Education Policy released in July 2020 by the government of India had emphasised on the importance of online education and said that it should be blended with the traditional mode. But the actual scenario that was witnessed during the lockdown, narrates a very different and sad story. It is high-time that the government must learn from the horrors of the lockdown and work on the short falls it experienced during this past year. Or else the future of the nation might be at stake!