Pandemic emphasised role of parents in closing gap in access to education: Atishi

New Delhi: Senior AAP leader and MLA Atishi, who has had a decisive hand in framing the current Delhi government's education policies, on Monday addressed the Harvard India Conference 2021, where while talking about the challenge of increased inequality in access to education due to the pandemic, she said a key method for the way ahead would be to look at engaging parents, families and communities in education as much as possible.

During the pandemic, the Delhi government had scaled up its model of involving parents in the schooling system to an intricate system of teachers contacting and keeping in touch with parents for uninterrupted online education to as large an extent as possible.

"The real outcome of COVID times for me is not as much the question of continuing online education, but the growing role of parents, the family and the community. It is something we can really build upon," the MLA said.

"In India, the quality of education worsens as you go down the economic spectrum, but during COVID19, the gap deepened even more," said Atishi. "What we have effectively had in one year is a very large segment of children who have just not had access to any formal education. I think this gap that has been created is a very serious one," said Atishi.

When asked whether it would be fair to conduct board examinations in these times, Atishi said, "Rather than asking whether we should postpone board exams this year, we have to ask ourselves- what are we assessing children on? This is a question that we've always faced as a country."

"In July, August 2021, we'll be in a position to open schools. Our biggest challenge then will be how to deal with the learning loss," she added.