MYSURU: According to a survey, 26% boys in Mysuru, 29% in Dharwad (including 9% girls) and 13% in Bengaluru (including 4% girls) have been employed as daily wage labourers during the period of the lockdown (March to June). The children employed as daily wage labourers were high school students.
With the lockdown halting all learning activities of students since March, the survey was conducted by the School Education programme of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SVYM) to understand the perceptions of students, teachers and parents on the COVID-19 scenario.
The survey was conducted in the last week of June covering 1572 students, 452 teachers and 770 parents in Bengaluru, Dharwad and Mysuru districts. All the survey respondents were students and teachers in government schools and the parents of children in government schools.
It was mostly parents in Dharwad (23%) and Mysuru (15%) who said their children were engaged as labourers or in household work (in Bengaluru only 7% said that their children were engaged in this). A majority of the parents (over 60% in all locations) didn’t want the schools to be reopened immediately due to fear of COVID-19. This was much higher (70%) among the parents of students in government Higher Primary Schools.
S Praveen Kumar, deputy CEO and Head, Institutions SVYM said, “The parents have felt that the closure of schools has adversely affected the education of students and some parents have also expressed fear that their children might drop out or acquire ‘bad’ habits. In Mysuru, 53% of parents have responded positively about this.”
The survey also reveals that the majority of students preferred to come to schools after a vaccine was discovered while 45 per cent in all age groups would love to come back to school in August–September 2020. Apart from this, children have spent the lockdown learning new things including academic work, reading books and enjoying outdoor and indoor games, he added.
Online learning
When it comes to online learning, about 70% students in Bengaluru, 50% in Dharwad and 30% in Mysuru have access to smartphones and internet at home. 8.57% students in high schools in Bengaluru could not attend any online classes. This was as high as 70% and 89% in Dharwad and Mysuru.
The number of students unable to attend online classes was higher in Higher Primary Schools. About 39% boys and 22% girls in Bengaluru have spent most of the time at home and only 25% of students in Bengaluru referred to audio-visual content available on internet or TV. None were reported from Dharwad and Mysuru.
In all, 452 teachers participated in the survey, including 173 Higher Primary Schools teachers. About 60% of teachers preferred online classes as the mode of instruction if the closure of schools is extended. Teachers have also preferred reduction of the syllabus for the next academic year. Teachers believe that audio-visual content would promote learning and workbooks would be effective.
A majority of the teachers preferred multiple methods (WhatsApp-like-applications, phone calls and parental participation) to continue engagement with the students. Teachers also preferred periodic telephonic follow-up, home visits and engagement with parents and SDMC members to ensure ‘zero-dropouts’
Key recommendations
The key recommendation of the survey is to develop audio-visual materials and activity books in collaboration with the teachers and the Education Department to be used by students to promote self-learning and peer-to-peer learning.
Another recommendation is to launch community learning centres at village level in the rural areas of Mysuru and Dharwad to promote learning among students through age-appropriate activities until the end of October.
The activities would include thematic activity-based learning (understanding agriculture and local professions using the concepts of mathematics, geography, economics, etc.); applications of STEM in daily life; job-oriented activities and short-term courses; life skills, counselling sessions and periodic follow-up to ensure students continue education and to resume Student-Driven Learning Centers (SDLCs) in government high schools in November.