Back to school a rotational policy for students in classrooms may be a better fit for pandemic times

Back to school a rotational policy for students in classrooms may be a better fit for pandemic times

Almost two years after the Covid pandemic forced schools to shut down and learning went online, schools are slowly reopening across the country. In fact, Delhi schools reopened for all classes yesterday with 50% capacity. Authorities are right to err on the side of caution and the phased reopening of schools – on since September – was a sensible idea. However, the hybrid model combining offline and online classes is challenging. If purely online classes threw up issues such as poor learning outcomes, unreliable internet connectivity and the digital divide between rich and poor students, the hybrid model does little to mitigate them.

On the contrary, hybrid models could lead to confusion. After all, teaching online and offline classes are totally different. If half the students are coming to school and the other half logging on from home, addressing both sets will require teachers to smoothly transition from offline to online teaching modes in real time. This in turn is bound to see a dip in teaching quality. Perhaps a better approach would be to adopt a rotational policy where 50% of students attend physical classes on certain days of the week, while the other 50% come to school on the remaining days.

True, this is still not without risks as vaccination for children is yet to begin. That’s why regulators need to keep speed in mind. Millions of children in countries across the world have already received vaccines. The list includes Denmark, Spain, France, Britain, Germany, US, Canada and China. There’s no reason Indian children should wait for months. A survey of around 1,400 underprivileged schoolchildren across 15 states has shown that pandemic-related school closures have created a four-year learning deficit. We are potentially looking at a partially lost generation here unless schooling is normalised as fast as possible.