About the organisation

Central Square Foundation (CSF) is a non-profit organisation working towards ensuring quality school education for all children in India. Since 2012, CSF has partnered with the government, the private sector, non-profit organisations, and other ecosystem stakeholders to improve the learning outcomes of children, especially from low-income communities. CSF is driven by its mission to enable the school education system to adopt solutions that are scalable, sustainable and effective so that all children get equal access to opportunities needed for leading a better life.

To learn more, please visit http://www.centralsquarefoundation.org/

Disclaimer: We have made every effort to ensure that the information provided in this report is correct and complete as of 5th July, 2021. No part of this study should be considered an official position of the Government of India, respective state governments or their allied agencies and departments.

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The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted school education in India bypushing as many as  250 million children out of classrooms. Evidence from past crises suggest that even short disruptions can lead to significant loss in learning. We imminently need to focus on effective remediation not only to reverse the learning losses due to the pandemic, but also to ensure that these losses don’t affect children’s chance at improving their life outcomes,and subsequently the nation's economy.
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Through this year’s School Education in India report, we document the scale and scope of the disruption in school education due to the pandemic; provide a framework for thinking about its short-term and long-term effects; analysethe ecosystem’s education response to the crises; and discuss the way forward. Covid-induced school closures led to widespread adoption of at-home learning programmes whichincluded EdTech solutions and doorstep delivery of workbooks among other things. Based on available data and evidence, the report draws upon challenges to at-home learning programmes and how they can be overcome. Going forward, it will be crucial to continue innovating and building on these programmes as India potentially looks at a system where schools open and close frequently to control the spread of the pandemic based on the local situation.

The report considers the risks and benefits of re-opening schools and discusses approaches for safe re-opening, including insights from other countries that re-opened during the pandemic. In addition, considerations for state governments as they plan tore-open schools are discussed. Priority should be given to opening schools for early grades given how critical foundational skills are for future learning. The recent launch of NIPUN Bharat comes at a very opportune time, and can very well be the beacon that guides the school education system on how to help children learn more meaningfully

Ashish Dhawan
Founder Chairman
Central Square Foundation

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Introduction: Unprecedented Disruption of School Education[page 7]

I. Ecosystem Response to Covid-19[page 20]

II. Learning at Home[page 53]

III. Re-opening of Schools[page 69]

Annexure[page 99]

List of abbreviations

AAC: Alternative Academic Calendar
AIR: All India Radio
AI: Artificial Intelligence
ASER: Annual Status of Education Report
AY: Academic Year
‍
BARC: Broadcast Audience Research Council
BE:  Budget Estimate
BEPC: Bihar Education Project Council
BPL: Below Poverty Line
BRC: Block Resource Coordinator
‍
CBSE: Central Board of Secondary Education
CMIE: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy
CRC: Cluster Resource Coordinator
CRY: Child Rights and You
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DCVTS: Delhi NCR Coronavirus Telephone Survey
DD: Doordarshan
DIET: District Institute of Education and Training
DIKSHA: Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing
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EY: Ernst & Young LLP

FLN: Foundational Literacy and Numeracy
FLOW: Foundational Learning Over Whatsapp
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GDP: Gross Domestic Product
GSMA: Global System for Mobile Communications Association

HH: Household
IAMAI: Internet & Mobile Association of India
ICE: India's Citizen Environment & Consumer Economy
ICT: Information and Communications Technology
IVRS: Interactive Voice Response System
‍
JNV: Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya
‍
KITE: Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education
KV:  Kendriya Vidyalaya
‍
LMIC: Low and Middle Income Countries
LO: Learning Outcomes

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List of abbreviations

MDM: Mid-day Meals
MHRD: Ministry of Human Resource Development
MOE: Ministry of Education
MOHFW: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
‍
NCR: National Capital Region
NCAER: National Council of Applied Economic Research
NCERT: National Council of Educational Research and Training
NEP: National Education Policy
NGO: Non Governmental Organization
NHFS: National Family Health Survey
NIPUN: National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy
NISHTHA: National Initiative for School Heads' and Teachers' Holistic Advancement
NSSO: National Sample Survey Office
NSW: New South Wales
NV: Navodaya Vidyalaya
‍
OCBP: Online Capacity Building Programme
PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment
PISA-D: PISA for Development
PP: Percentage Points

SC: Scheduled Caste
SEED: State Education and Executive Development Programme
SOP: Statement of Purpose
SNP: Supplementary Nutrition Programme
SSA: Samagra Siksha Abhiyaan
ST: Scheduled Tribe
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TNTP: Tamil Nadu Teachers Platform
TRAI: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
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U-DISE: Unified District Information System for Education
UNICEF: United Nations Children's Fund
UNESCO: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UT: Union Territory
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WASH: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

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Covid-19 Vastly Affected School Education and Households in India

1.5 million schools, closed down to contain the pandemic, have remained largely closed sinceMarch 2020

250 million students affected by loss of learning and nutrition from school closures

84% of Indian households reported  income loss during the lockdown in 2020 (According to CMIE)

92% and 82% of students in grades2-6 lost at least one ability in language and mathematics, respectively, over previous year (Azim Premji University, 2021)

School closures impacted socio-emotional well-being of students; 33% of 5-13 year-olds and 50% of 14-18 year-olds reported poor or very poor mental health (UNICEF, 2021)

10 million girls in India likelyto be pushed out of school by the pandemic (CRY, 2020)

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Long-term and Short-term Costs of the Pandemic
School closures and economic shock likely to be crippling for India

Source: World Bank framework (WorldBank, 2020), adapted for the Indian context  

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Direct Education Costs
School closures are leading to immense learning loss

What children shouldhave learnt during the academic year

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What children have forgotten from what they already knew

Learning loss due to school closures

Azim Premji Foundation conducted a study in January 2021 with 16,067 children from grades 2-6 in 44 districts across India to gauge the extent of learning loss, which found that:

  • Over 82% had forgotten foundational abilities in mathematics
  • Over 92% had forgotten foundational abilities in languages

Learning loss by grade level

Source: Azim Premji Foundation, 2021

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Health and Safety Impact
School closures affect child health in the short and long-term

Immediate impact

  • Reduction in coverage of essential health services (immunization, deworming)
  • Disruption of school meal programmes – Supplementary Nutrition Programme (SNP) and Mid Day Meals (MDM) – could increase the prevalence of malnutrition
  • Reduced socialization and socio-emotional learning could affect mental health of children

State-level multimodal approaches to school feeding in India during Covid-19

(Innocenti Working Paper, UNICEF, 2021)

Home delivery of mid-day meals/ rations

Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Assam, Uttar Pradesh

Take-home rations

Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha

Cash transfers

Bihar, Uttarakhand

Long-term impact

  • Limited access to nutrition can lead to malnutrition, impairing a child’s cognitive development, especially in early years
  • Poor health can affect an individual’s long-term productivity and income
    ‍

State-level multimodal approaches to school feeding in India during Covid-19

(Innocenti Working Paper, UNICEF, 2021)

Home delivery of mid-day meals/ rations

Kerala, Karnataka, Haryana, Assam, Uttar Pradesh

Take-home rations

Chhattisgarh, Jammu & Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha

Cash transfers

Bihar, Uttarakhand

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Demand for Education
Pandemic induced economic shock impacted livelihoods and households

77 %

Rapid phone-based surveys inDelhi suggest that the pandemic led to loss of livelihoods and wages. Casual labourers were especially affected. Daily earnings of those gainfully employed declined by 77% [1]

Loss of livelihoods by region and economic activity  (%)

Impact of lockdowns on households(%)

Source: Kesar et al., 2020, using data collected from 12 large states through phone-based surveys during April-May 2020  
[1] Afridi,cDhillon, and Roy, 2020

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Demand for Education
Millions of migrant workers left cities due to the lockdown, affecting the education of accompanying children

Covid-19 shock

8.5%
  • The lockdown from March 2020 fuelled an unprecedented reverse migration of 11.4 million workers from India’s densely populated cities to their home states
    (Paliath,S., 2021)
  • In Delhi alone, 166,000 students – about8.5% of total school enrollments – fell off the map and schools cannot tracethem
    (Iftikhar,2021)

Research shows that children who migrate with their parents get less education for each year of age than the group that does not migrate  (Coffey, D., 2013)

Regular times

  • Economic Survey (2016-17) estimates India to have
    ~9 million migrants
  • Around 20-40% of school going age children may be accompanying migrant workers, or migrating for seasonal
    work (Coffey et al., 2014)

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Demand for Education
Income shock from the pandemic affected HHs’ demand for education

[1] Evidence suggests that 1 pp increase in poverty leads to 0.7 pp increase in child labour (UNICEF, 2020)pp stands for percentage points

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Demand for Education
Data from Haryana suggests significant dropouts and student migration from private to government schools

Enrollment in Private and Government Schools in Haryana (in lakhs) 

Number of students who migrated from private to government schools in AY 2021-22 by grade

Source: Haryana Education Department.

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Supply of Education
Union Budget allocations for children’s welfare reduced by more than 10% for 2021-22

Trends in allocation for children in Union Budgets  

Allocations for Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan

Allocations for National Scheme for Incentive to Girls for secondary education

[1] Allocation for welfare of children is composed of budget allocations for Child Health, Child Protection, Child Development and Nutrition, and Child Education.
Source: Union Budget analysis by CRY (CRY, 2021)

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Long-term Costs
Recent research suggests Covid-19learning shock can have significant long-term impact on India’s human capital

Long run impact of Covid-19learning shock

Kaffenberger(2020) modelled the long-term impact of Covid-19on learning, finding that:

  • Learning losses from school closures could continue to accumulate even after children return to school
  • A3-month school closure could reduce long-term learning by at least a full year’s worth of learning
  • Remediation when children return to school reduces the long-term learning loss by half, but still leaves children more than half-a-year behind where they would have been
  • Remediation combined with long-term reorientation of instruction to align with children’s learning levels fully mitigates the long-term learning loss

Modelling estimates of long-term learning loss from Covid-19 shock and mitigation strategies

  • The model introduces a learning shock for group of grade 3 students and models their learning trajectories and outcomes through grade 10
  • The model replicates average grade 10 learning in mathematics in seven low- and middle income countries who participated in the PISA forDevelopment (PISA-D) assessment

Source: Kaffenberger, M (2020)

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Long-term Costs
Low human capital development can lead to economic, social and distributional issues

Economic issues
Social and distributional issues

Learning loss has primarily two long-term economic costs:

  • At an individual level, children whose education are interrupted face a long-term income loss over their lifetime (Hanushek& Woessmann, 2020)
  • At an aggregate level, a less skilled workforce is less productive leading to low economic growth

Inter-generational cycle of low human capital and productivity

Career earning losses are likely to be higher for:

  • Children from disadvantaged households
  • Low-achieving students
  • Students from vulnerable and/or marginalized groups

Inequities in learning and income inequality worsen

Learning poverty worsens, especially for children without access to at-home learning resources

Long-run loss in GDP due to Covid-19induced learning losses

Learning loss
(school-year equivalents)

In % of discounted future GDP

In % of current GDP

GDP decrease in year 2100

0.25
1.1%
52%
1.9%
0.33
1.5%
69%
2.6%
0.50
2.2%
103%
3.8%
0.67
2.9%
136%
5.1%
1.00
4.3%
202%
7.5%

Source: Hanushek & Woessmann, 2020

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Overview

I. Ecosystem Response to Covid-19

Discusses the education response of the central and state governments, and non-government organizations to the pandemic

II. Learning at Home

Explores how the interplay between access and other household characteristics determines the effectiveness of at-home learning

III. Re-opening of Schools

Assesses the considerations and approaches in re-opening schools after prolonged school closures

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