The corona pandemic that shook the whole world has affected many sectors in the last two years. While it has severely affected public health, the spill-over can be seen in other areas such as education. School closures have brought significant changes in the education sector in India, especially in the primary sector. At the age at which they should be playing outside, they are confined to homes. This is the time when the foundation of knowledge and discipline is laid in the children. The role of primary education is to ensure broad-based learning of the child. This includes the development of social, cognitive, cultural, emotional, and physical skills. Suffice to say, the lockdown has severely affected the learning of primary kids.
Primary education governs the path to the actual educational world. This is an important part of a child’s life. Not only the basic skills but, they are also taught the fundamentals of communication and cooperation. Lockdown has given rise to online education systems, even to little kids. But it is very different from what an actual school offers. Schools provide a better learning atmosphere that cannot be created at home. Also, schools provide various opportunities to enhance the holistic growth of children. Not only, they are exposed to learning social behaviours but also their behavioural patterns are monitored accordingly. It becomes difficult for a child to concentrate and learn new things at home. Moreover, children cannot learn discipline at home. Parents can discipline their behaviour, but only to a certain point. While teachers as professionals are more likely to take proper actions to teach their pupils' good moral values and behaviours. The grassroots of these characteristics could be learned properly at schools with the stringent supervision of teachers. By staying with family members throughout the day, children have remained confined to the family. Therefore, it will be difficult for the children to get comfortable with new people, which in turn will affect their social behaviour, which will directly affect their future
At present, there are many disorders in society due to the lockdown, so the requirements to cure them are also different. Since it is not yet decided when the schools will be reopened, children should be given proper care and a learning environment at home. Effective actions are required to quell the impact of Covid on primary education. Parents must encourage the children to spend their time in music, dance, and other artistic activities, and they must be part of the activities. Teachers give them various group activities to encourage their social behaviour. Parents must do the same and have peers give them group assignments so they can start mingling with others and make up for their lack of conversation. There are many such activities, through which their functioning can be brought back on track once again. To bridge this gap of almost two years, we desperately need to be serious; otherwise, we will end up playing with the future of a generation who are the future of our country.
