Historic studies show records of approximately 6 pandemics every century. So statistically,
homosapiens are highly likely to witness more than one pandemic in their lifetime. As cool as
it might sound to say we have lived through a pandemic, the harsh reality of the pandemic’s
consequences trumps any slight cool-ness about it. Be it the swine flu or the MERS or the novel coronavirus and its infamous variants, it’s been a wild 21st century so far.
When it first started getting media coverage in December 2019, the world around could care
less about the “china virus”. The outbreak seemed so far-fetched that when reality struck,
people activated their first stage of coping- denial. There is no way a virus from a bat in
China could reach all the way to Maharashtra! But deception is a funny thing. The graph
charts kept exponentially increasing in China, Iran, Italy and slowly but steadily in India.
It was the end of March, colleges halted on-campus lectures, a few board subject exams
were cancelled as it blared out on national TV the news of a nation-wide lockdown
“sampoorn lockdown”. For many of us, students, a lockdown meant a vacation before
summer vacation. It meant online exams and easy assessments. And for many service
workers, it meant work from the comfort of homes. But on the flip side of society, families were devastatingly affected. Families who fought tooth and nail to keep a roof over their heads were shattered. Kaam wali aai, rickshaw wale bhaiya, school me maushi, security uncle (Domestic helpers, auto-rickshaw drivers, non-teaching school staff, security uncles), whoever the breadwinner was, all of them
struggling. And for how long? Uncertain.Pandemics are a force of nature, there is only so little that can be done to predict their outbreak. A developing country like India wasn’t ready for a pandemic. The driving force of this country’s progress was in shackles. 21 days over. 14 April 2020, lockdown was further
increased. The slight hope that the world would return to normal soon collapsed completely.
Words like new normal became a common vocabulary for everyone, because at this point
everyone accepted the reality- coping stage 2.
Since then, lockdowns have been imposed and lifted, gradually and very thoughtfully.
Consequently, the employment rates dipped as employers seeked less working hours. Many
industries saw a complete halt in their functioning, like theatre and dine-in food chains.
Which meant every employee at work was off and free to find a paying job wherever they
could. A majority of them took the way home, but the crisis was hard-hitting. Multiple families
lost their bread earners in tragic stories across the country. We witnessed a great deal of
sorrow with the loss of our loved ones to the coronavirus infections, shortage in medical
equipment, social protests and even depression!
With all of this surrounding the world in a whirlwind, families’ losses of their earning members
forced others in the household into key earning positions. By human nature, we prioritise
survival, and survival calls for food and other basic necessities. This gets us to our stage 3 of
coping- adjust & overcome. Unfortunately, in a situation like this education is pushed off the
table. In a household struggling to pay food bills, there isn’t a question of paying school fees.
With the unemployment rate higher since the pandemic, the school dropout rate among
secondary school children is rising. According to a recent report by The Times Of India, nine
states/union territories have recorded over 25% school dropout rate on secondary level.
The Covid-19 pandemic’s consequences have backstepped India from years of rural
education progress made by the country. Over 10 million girls are reported to be on the edge
of dropping out, as stated by the Right to Education Forum policy. While the world continues
to stabilize and our country strives to get back up stronger, reviving school registrations is
going to prove to be a challenging task. Rural education, particularly female education has
proven a strong suite in the nation’s GDP, and this further goes on to say a strong education
model is a need of the hour.
It serves as a wake up call to many of us who are privileged to be financially unaffected by the pandemic, that we strive to demand schemes for access to education for all. Education
shouldn’t be a treasure with a price tag. Numerous schemes and NGOs have been
introduced in various rural areas to address the problem at hand. We as a society need to
hold hands and raise awareness on the importance of education and facilitate learning for
underprivileged students. Let no family ever have to choose between survival and education!