COVID-19 and Education in India

Rezensionen / Stimmen

The educational havoc wrought by the Covid pandemic was nowhere more catastrophic than in India. With schools shuttered for 18 months, even the paltry substitute of 'online learning' remained inaccessible to many youngsters. Elites, their families largely insulated from any ill effects, are now eager to forget and move on. For their part, tech corporations peddle spurious forms of techno-solutionism trialled during the school closures. This volume from Satvinderpal Kaur and Pradeep Kumar Choudhury reminds us of the scale of the educational disaster triggered by COVID-19 and the enduring damage inflicted on India's most vulnerable citizens. Their work would make it harder to forget the consequences of this tragedy, inform efforts to remedy its effects and help ensure that educational authorities are better prepared to handle the next pandemic.

Edward Vickers, UNESCO Chair on Education for Peace, Social Justice and Global Citizenship, Kyushu University (Japan)

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary perspective on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in India. The papers provide macro and micro analyses of the multiple educational crises at all levels through the pandemic years and beyond. Overall, the volume offers insight into how the pandemic served the interests of a state distanced from the educational needs of marginalised students, and business groups keen to exploit the market for online and digital technologies in the name of efficiency. The authors argue that these factors shifted the very imagination of education in a democratic country and what is necessary to reclaim a vision of education for equity and social justice. The volume is an important contribution to scholarship on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education in India and is a valuable resource for students, researchers and those engaged in advocacy.

Nandini Manjrekar, Professor, School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai (India)