More than half of Assam’s school children are uncertain about returning to school even after the end of the Covid19 pandemic.
This was revealed in a survey conducted by the Right to Education Forum (RTE Forum), Centre for Budget and Policy Studies (CBPS) and the Champions for Girls’ Education.
The survey reported that about 63% of the children were not sure of going back to school after the epidemic.
Surprisingly, 82% of these children were boys.
The pandemic has not only affected the education of the students but it has also put a question mark on their future.
The survey titled ‘Life in the time of Covid-19: Mapping the Impact of Covid-19 on the Lives and Education of Children in India’ was conducted in five Indian states.
The survey covered 11 districts of Uttar Pradesh, 8 districts of Bihar, 5 districts of Assam, 4 districts of Telangana and 1 district of Delhi.
Under Right to Education (RTE), there is a provision of free education for children between the ages of 6 to 14 years in classes 1 to 8.
But out of these 8 years of education, girls are not able to complete even 4 years of schooling properly.
Now many of the schools have remained closed due to the Covid19 epidemic.
Digital/online learning has started but this has become a big reason for keeping these girls from their studies.
While at school, girls could give all their time to study, now the situation is different.
Most of the girls are also being asked to do domestic work while studying.
During the study, similar pattern was seen in almost all the states.
The survey in Assam shows that Covid19 had a worse impact on school girls than the boys.
Statistics show that 79% of the girls are spending their time in household chores while 68% of boys are spending time of their accord.
Girls shared that their movement has been restricted.
Of these, 62% believe that ‘life was better before Covid-19’.
During the survey, 484 families from rural and town backgrounds in Assam, who have been facing problems like floods, communalism and ethnic violence, were included.
These families come from 5 districts of Assam including Dhubri, Jorhat, Kokrajhar, Lakhimpur, and Tinsukia.
Most members of the families covered by the survey work in farming and tea gardens.
The survey included 20% Muslims, 15% Christians, and 29% of people coming from scheduled castes and tribes.
The survey also included many people who were from central India and used to work in Assam.
It was observed that only 20% of the surveyed women work in domestic spaces and they have no other source of income.
While 70% of the women work outside their homes to support their family’s income, in other states, most of the women were seen doing household chores.
Out of the total children surveyed, 73% were studying in government schools while only 13% were students in private schools.