Students May End Up ‘Lost’ Generation Warns Raghuram Rajan

By Tharini Ilanchezhian

Raghuram Rajan, Former India Governor of the Reserve Bank of India has stated his concern over that fact that we may end up with a very 'lost' generation if the schools don't re-open soon and has warned over the same.

He has expressed his concern over the quality of lessons that the students have been taking for the past one and a half year through online mode of classes. The 23^rd governor of RBI also told that it is not about just keeping up with the classes, but also the fact that they would have started forgetting. By the time they go back to school after the one and half year lag, they will be three years behind at that time.

Rajan, 58-year-old former governor served in the post for a period of three years, from 2003 to 2006. He was also the Chief Economist and Director of Research at the International Monetary Fund.

According to sources, he conveyed his hope that the Central and State government would have given a thought about the way to bring back the kids to school, especially the ones belonging to the poorer segments. The country will have a lost generation of kids otherwise.

A classroom of Girls only school before pandemic hit India.

Photo by Yogendra Singh on Unsplash

Complying with the norms and rules to control the COVID-19 pandemic, the schools have been shut since march, 2020. Previous discussions that were held regarding the re-opening of schools were withdrawn by the government due to the red-alert situation posed by the outbreak of the deadly second wave. As per the study of UNICEF, the closure of school due to the pandemic situation has affected almost 25 crore children across the nation.

Online mode of classes, which is serving as one single way out from the closure of schools has not been the same for all children. It worked different in the various divides of the economic classes. Various students have not been able to access to the online classes due to the lack of availability of gadgets and internet.

This may lead to an even worse situation causing a deepening divisions, where the students of the poorer backgrounds have already suffered from the not-so-good quality of schools will now lag three years behind the privileged ones. This will make it very tough to bring those children back to the speed. It may also end up in them dropping out.

The former RBI governor also told that 30-40% of the students which is a major-scale disaster.

Several states such as Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Karnataka have already started to partially open the schools after the slowdown of the spread of COVID-19 in the country, for which Rajan has told that bringing the students back to school is simply not enough. Deliberate efforts should be made to bring them back from the lost ground for the past year and a half.