The Government of Telangana's sudden decision to declare Sankranti holidays now, especially due to a spike in COVID-19 cases, has been condemned by Telangana Recognised School Management Association (TRSMA) in its open letter to the state and central government. After about 19 months of closure which has led to learning loss and gaps in students, shutting educational institutions down again is only going to add to the perils of students. TRSMA says apart from this, we have many other factors to worry about.
'There are countries like the UK where schools haven't shut down, but in our country, the very first question posed when Omricon landed in India was, 'When will educational institutions close?', states the letter. What Yadagiri Shekhar Rao, State President, TRSMA shares is that every day, he receives several calls from concerned teachers talking about the behavioural change that has occurred in students. "They are distracted, disturbed and have come back with decreased attention spans, especially students of Classes VIII, IX and X," he shares. Needless to add that instances of child labour tend to go up during lockdowns. "Undoubtedly in the coming days this will have a devastating effect on families and society as the focus on learning decreased and children focus on other unnecessary things had increased," stated the letter, which has been addressed both to the state and central government because it is a cause of concern to both.
The letter goes on to highlight how scientific studies have proven that prolonged closure of schools will impact children adversely. "The government needs to understand the problem instead of just calling for closure," says the president. The first step is to take into consideration all stakeholders and viewpoints instead of making decisions at their level, which the president claims hasn't been done to date. 'With so much clear evidence, the decision to close schools is meaningless. We hope that along with our state of Telangana all other states also will take a reasonable decision in this regard and allow educational institutions and classes to run physically and as usual,' states the letter.