Bridging the gap: Evidence on children’s engagement in remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic from the ASER survey in rural India

• In Event: Student Learning and Experiences in South Asia

Proposal

Facilitated by Pratham Education Foundation, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey on children’s foundational reading and arithmetic abilities has been highlighting the learning crisis in rural India for the last fifteen years. In 2020, the advent of COVID-19 pandemic put the country’s long ailing education system on life support. For India and many countries around the world, global estimates suggest that school dropout rates will rise and children’s foundational skills will suffer due to prolonged school closures, setting back any progress made in recent times. It is also believed that equity gaps will increase based on unequal access to different forms of technology-based educational inputs, possibly turning children away from school even after the closures end.

In response to the disruptions caused by the pandemic and to mitigate its adverse effects on children’s learning, the central and state governments in India, got swiftly engaged in reaching out to children through a variety of remote means with a menu of diverse educational content. While a lot of digital content has been generated and transmitted, there is very limited evidence on the extent to which this content and remote teaching is in fact reaching children, whether they are engaging with it and the impact it is having on their participation and learning.

Numerous studies have been done on the impact of the pandemic in the country since the first lockdown was announced in March 2020. These studies cover aspects such as physical and mental health, migration, distribution of public services, employment etc. for various populations, but only a handful cover children’s education. Also, the data provided by studies on children’s education is specific to some types of schools or communities located in few states.
Taking the unprecedented constraints into account, while at the same time addressing the urgent need for large scale nationally representative data on children’s education, the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) survey in 2020 was adapted to a phone survey format. It was designed to explore how differential provision of and access to remote education mechanisms and modes in rural parts of the country impacted learning opportunities, and the manner in which children, families, and educators were engaging with these from their homes. This survey was conducted with a sample of households drawn from a previous ASER dataset to generate estimates that are representative at the national and state level. Phone calls were made to parents/caregivers of children aged 5-16 in approximately 1,10,000 households as well as headmasters or school teachers in 15,000 schools over a span of ten days in September 2020, which was the sixth month of continuous school closures in the country.

This paper presents the findings of the ASER phone survey on key questions of provision, access, engagement, and challenges in remote learning during the pandemic. Provision includes materials and activities, created and distributed centrally with the government or by teachers on their own. Access includes paper-based and technology-based resources available at children’s home and learning content accessed using these. Engagement includes children’s engagement with the content, parent/caregiver’s engagement with the child to support her learning, and parent/child’s contact with the school teacher. Challenges include difficulties faced by parents/children and teachers while participating in and conducting remote learning activities.

Based on these findings, the paper discusses the deep disparities in children’s access and support to learning outside of school. Taking examples from efforts made by different states in the country, it explores possible reasons behind this inequity by elucidating evidence on lack of digital access and connectivity, conducive learning space at homes, varied abilities of parents/caregivers, etc. It emphasizes the need for governments and a wide variety of other stakeholders in education – civil society organizations, philanthropists, educators etc. - to recognize that their responsibility extends beyond just creation and mass distribution of remote content. It is imperative to develop robust strategies and delivery models that are designed to reach the most underserved population of children; that include mechanisms that recognize the disadvantages of parents and caregivers and equip them suitably or provide alternatives that are designed to foster learning in these challenging times. These steps are essential to ensure a somewhat level playing field to help all children continue to learn.

Authors

• Nimisha Kapoor, ASER Centre

• Shweta Bhutada, ASER Centre, Pratham Education Foundation

• Setu Loomba, ASER Centre, Delhi