Author – Preeti

In a conversation with one of my friends who teaches at MCD school of West Delhi, I asked her how are you doing in terms of education of your students during the lockdown with schools shut for almost 7 months now, what she replied didn’t come as shocking to me, rather it was expected.

She told me, “It’s only ‘Whatsapp’ that is easily accessible to not all but most of them, so the teachers try to keep in touch with this app only. The challenge here is that most of the students don’t have smart phones that support Whatsapp and those who even have it, it’s only one member from the family who own it and they are mostly out for work as they belong to working class families. She added further that education is none of their concern for now, it’s not the “necessity” for their survival. Sometimes parents of the students call to ask “madam ration kahan mil raha hai aap bata sakte hain?”(Where can we get ration from? If you get any information please tell us). So, now we are on duty to distribute ration to them. She also told me that most of the students are constantly migrating to and from their villages, so it’s really difficult and almost impossible to keep in touch with them.”

It is in this context that we need to first and foremost ponder upon several questions such as: Who is a part of the “new normal” formed in this time of crisis? Does education come easy to everyone? What are the assumptions of online-virtual mode of education?

It is of no doubt that the online classes are exclusive to those who have resources. The schools that cater to privileged classes only are having online classes in a much easy and smooth way as it caters to a homogeneous group of students without any of the challenges faced by the students as well as teachers as compared to those in the government schools. It should be noted that majority of children in these schools come from upper-middle classes and castes. It is not to say that online class is an option to replace the teaching-learning process, what online classes are doing is even more dangerous. My concern was raised because amidst the ongoing pandemic situation and due to the lockdown, the working class children who mostly hail from lower castes and disadvantaged positions, are the most affected and we get to hear all the time, what they are going through. The above shared anecdote prompted me to think from these positions.

Online mode of education that is based on the conditionality of an individual’s status for having the resources like owning a laptop or smart phones, a private space of one’s own, a stable internet connection etc., are only the tip of the iceberg. This discussion leads us to re-think education about whether it is fulfilling its primary aims or not.  Moving on further if we look at the situation from the added dimensions such as gender and caste, a more intricate problem will emerge. Caste dimension plays another important role in excluding children and putting them at more disadvantaged positions. The aspect of caste is a very complex issue that needs to be studied in a neo-liberal India.

Is education a question of accessibility alone?

Education is a key to success but parents who belong to lower caste and class couldn’t hold their foot in education due to the structural oppression and lack of resources. But they are very keen for their children to study and gain success. There are certain characteristics of a family that influences the social mobility of children. It is not surprising to note that parents from these communities are unable to provide any guidance regarding education to their children. They are themselves uneducated, hence, they can’t help their children in homework or any other query related to education. Children from marginalized communities again lag behind and all they are able to do is on their own or they drop out if they can’t cope.  Parents of working class children, both mother and father are always busy. They are unable to interact with their children about how they are doing in the studies. There is a minimal interaction between them and hence children struggle on their own.

The structural feature of a family such as the number of members in a family determines one’s social mobility especially in lower class-caste families. The parents are generally unaware of family planning due to lack of education and wishes for a boy in the family even after 3-4 girls. Abortion again is not an option due to economic constraint. They have to socialize the family with a large number of members. Educational support is clearly not provided but the economic support is also something they struggle with. Economic constraints are such that they can’t get tuition for them. The parents can’t afford to put their money on one child and not others. But the socialization in such cases becomes gendered at a point when both boys and girls are there in the family. It has been observed that in such cases a boy can be admitted to private school along with the tuition while a girl will be struggling to study in a neighborhood government school.

Another important concern that cannot be overlooked here relates to the educated and comparatively upwardly mobile dalits who mostly belong to middle class. On the basis of reservation policies there have been modest improvements in the educational and economical status of dalits and hence these families are keen to provide formal education to their children that they were denied access to. In most cases, it has been observed that dalits who are now entering the higher educational spaces are first generation learners. They are fighting all the odds to make ends meet. Though, the urban modern India claims to be “caste free” but it is because there are no conversations related to caste in urban life. It has been observed that due to the social status of dalits they often have to face the discrimination in the educational and work places. It doesn’t mean caste- based discrimination doesn’t exist. But the caste issues revolve in the urban spaces in more subtle and dangerous manner.

Locating a dalit girl in these spaces, the problem become much more complex when we look at the situation through the intersections of caste and gender. Bhatt (2020) recently reported in a village of UP with almost 500 dalit families, only 8% girls had the device to access the online classes. Earlier in June, a 14-year-old SC girl in Kerala died by suicide, as she couldn’t attend online classes due to lack of technology, as her father, being a daily-wage laborer, couldn’t buy her a mobile phone( Bansal & Shukla, 2020). This is the one case that made it to the mainstream media but other such cases remain unregistered. Dalit women become an important subject here because they are always negotiating with the issues of caste, class and gender in their private as well as public life, fighting and taking stand for themselves to enter the new regime and a world that has been denied to their caste group earlier and the gender community till now.

It should be noted that a heavy amount of onus on the girls is put throughout India, irrespective of their caste and class to follow the already laid gender norms. But it is in the working class families that the situation worsens where the girls are left to look after the household chores and their younger as well as elder siblings in the absence of mothers at home. They are already burdened with such situations at home that attending online classes seems an option that can be easily ignored. Moreover, they are constantly being reminded that education will have no use for them in the future as they have to get married in no time and then learn and follow the rituals of their in-laws house. They are busy in getting such socialization that they have a lack of interest for education and soon they opt to drop-out of the school.

The important questions one needs to ask and reflect upon in regard to the above discussion are: How are we going to make up for the loss when we get back to the normalcy post-pandemic? Would this loss in addition to already existing loss be even concerned and talked about? As we are moving forward with New Education Policy (2020), with its well laid theoretical model that assures us to address the concerns to be taken into consideration in future, how are we really going to cope with the worse situations that are already there in the present world?

References

Bansal, M., & Shukla, S. (2020). Understanding how does COVID-19 impacted education of girls in India. Feminism in India. Retrieved from: https://feminisminindia.com/2020/08/03/girls-education-india-covid-19-early-marriage-crisis/.

Bhatt, N. (2020). Examining India’s new education policy through a gender lens. Retrieved from: https://www.devex.com/news/examining-india-s-new-education-policy-through-a-gender-lens-98007.

Author – Preeti Koli pursuing PhD in Education from School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi and can be contacted at preetikoli44@gmail.com