Abstract

With school closures and a disruption of education during the Covid-19 pandemic, children across India suffered a loss of learning. However, children from the most marginalised groups faced a disproportionate impact. Long periods of school closure push children from deprived sections into labour, sexual and labour trafficking, early marriages and long-term drop outs from school (Dove et al.,2020; Denney et al., 2015; UNDP, 2015; Selverbik, 2020; Santos & Novelli, 2017). Studies conducted in India, over the past two years of the pandemic have also indicated the same. In fact, an early estimate of UNESCO in the year 2020 suggested that about 140 million students in primary and 130 million students in secondary have been affected by the multiple lockdowns in India. It is against this background that this paper seeks to understand the impact of the pandemic on a group of more than 700 children studying in 9 government schools from two districts of Bihar – Muzaffarpur and Patna over a period of 1.5 years of the pandemic.

The paper details the findings from three rounds of a survey conducted with children and other stakeholders via telephonic and mixed methods interviews. It illuminates some of the major trends such as the limited access to mobile phones for children from marginalised backgrounds, economic distress that was exacerbated by the pandemic, and the constraints on girls’ freedom such as a disproportionate amount of care work. The paper extrapolates the survey’s findings to make three critical conclusions: (1) the educational situation is different for children who are marginalised – they face a historical and infrastructural deprivation along with a social one, (2) this influences both girls and boys, but girls bear a brunt only because they are girls – boys have the ‘option’ of juggling, but girls are given no choices, and (3) thr pandemic showcases what was already wrong with the system which cannot be addressed merely by technological intervention. It calls for systemic strengthening of social protection measures and building long-term resilience.

Ghatak, N., Yaraseeme, A.S., Menon, N., and Jha,J. (2022). “The Effect of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Economic Distress on Education: A View from the Margins”. Centre for Budget and Policy Studies: Bengaluru, India.