Over 20,000 Schools Shut Down due to Second Wave of COVID: Report

Over 20,000 schools shut down due to the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, around 1.89 lakh teachers exited the workforce. These findings were revealed in the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) data for the year 2021-22.

As per The Indian Express, while the first wave had also impacted schools, the crisis was exacerbated with the Delta variant.

The Department of School Education and Literary started managing UDISE counting in 2018-19. Since then, the drop in the number of schools has never been as significant as in 2021-22; the number of schools dropped from 15.09 lakh in the preceding year to 14.89 lakh in 2021-22. Around 24% of these schools were private, while 48% were government-aided.

The report further highlighted that "the trend of students shifting from private to government schools also deepened during the last financial crisis, showing the economic cost of the pandemic marked by job losses and pay cuts."

Enrollments in government schools in 2021-22 increased by around 83.35 lakh, while private schools saw a drop of 68.85 lakhs.

"The decline in total schools is mainly due to the closure of schools under private and other management," the Ministry of Education said. Additionally, the ministry also attributed the closures to the "grouping/clustering of schools by various states. However, no response was provided about the decline in the number of teachers and the increase in drop-out rates.

Among Indian states where school closures were significant, Madhya Pradesh accounted for a drop o 6,457 schools (66.82% of the total drop). Moreover, the state also accounts for the closure of 1,167 private schools.

A comparative analysis of UDISE reports in the last four years shows that there was a similar drop between 2018-19 and 2019-20; however, that "drop was driven primarily by the merger of government schools as the number of private schools had risen by 11,271 during the same period."

The decline in the number of teachers was particularly worrying in Rajasthan, where around 31,148 teachers left the workforce compared to the previous year. In Odisha, the reduction was 24,838, followed by Karnataka (22,937), Punjab (21,940), Bihar (18,643), Assam (17397), and Gujarat (10,687).

Interestingly, Bihar did not see any shutdown of schools, public and private, but the number of teachers still dropped by 18,643. Experts have attributed school layoffs to prolonged closures. It also impacted new enrolments in schools as "the enrollment in pre-primary section (excluding Anganwadi run by the Ministry of Women and Child Development) dropped by 11.5 lakh.

The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), the enrolment in a specific level of education as a fraction of the population in that age group most age-appropriate for that level of education, also decreased from 79.8 to 78.56 at the secondary level.