NOIDA: Around 30% of children studying in 1,646 government and private schools in Gautam Budh Nagar faced disruptions in their studies without access to mobiles, internet and laptops or smartphones during the coronavirus pandemic.
While no official survey has been undertaken in the district so far, official estimates and parents’ association, citing feedback from parents and schools say nearly 5-10% of students enrolled in private schools also switched to government ones due to insufficient or loss of family income and inability to pay fees.
According to Dharamveer Singh, the district inspector of schools (DIOS), of late there has been a lot of students’ migration from private to government schools. This, he said, was mainly an aftereffect of the pandemic. “Insufficient family income or higher fees are among the main reasons why about 5-10% of private school children shifted to government ones. Education of about 30% children, mostly from lower-middle to low-income families in semi-rural and rural areas, suffered in the absence of gadgets to attend online classes,” Singh said.
Dropouts from schools, however, have remained low. Several children belonging to migrant families, who had left the district during the pandemic, are gradually returning back and re-joining school, the DIOS said. “However, now that the schools are reopening, initiatives are being taken to ensure recovery of classes missed. We expect children to benefit from it,” Singh said. He added that a versatile model of teaching-cum-studies was introduced during the pandemic and it was likely to continue for some time.
Manoj Kataria, founder of GB Nagar Parents’ Welfare Society (GPWS), meanwhile, said there were many students in government schools who dropped out because their parents shifted to their native places and they didn’t have gadgets to continue classes from there.
“But parents of almost all private school students, including those studying in big-budget schools (where the annual fee is Rs1 lakh or above) or low-budget schools (where the annual fee is less than Rs80,000) in the city or in remote areas, have shifted their wards to smaller or government schools,” he said.
According to Kataria, the main reason for the migration was financial stress and the inability to pay fees. “We did a Google survey recently to understand how many parents consented to reopening schools in the current situation. We found that about 30% to 40% private schools, which are recognised up to class 8 (mostly running out of rented buildings), were not functioning as they were waiting for students to return,” Kataria said.
District programme officer Atul Soni, meanwhile, said of the seven children orphaned due to the pandemic in GB Nagar six were school-going. DIOS Singh maintained that a 100% fees waiver for orphaned children have been arranged by the officials in cooperation with schools. “It’s heartening to note that not a single school opposed this move and agreed to extend a fee waiver,” Singh told TOI.
While no official survey has been undertaken in the district so far, official estimates and parents’ association, citing feedback from parents and schools say nearly 5-10% of students enrolled in private schools also switched to government ones due to insufficient or loss of family income and inability to pay fees.
According to Dharamveer Singh, the district inspector of schools (DIOS), of late there has been a lot of students’ migration from private to government schools. This, he said, was mainly an aftereffect of the pandemic. “Insufficient family income or higher fees are among the main reasons why about 5-10% of private school children shifted to government ones. Education of about 30% children, mostly from lower-middle to low-income families in semi-rural and rural areas, suffered in the absence of gadgets to attend online classes,” Singh said.
Dropouts from schools, however, have remained low. Several children belonging to migrant families, who had left the district during the pandemic, are gradually returning back and re-joining school, the DIOS said. “However, now that the schools are reopening, initiatives are being taken to ensure recovery of classes missed. We expect children to benefit from it,” Singh said. He added that a versatile model of teaching-cum-studies was introduced during the pandemic and it was likely to continue for some time.
Manoj Kataria, founder of GB Nagar Parents’ Welfare Society (GPWS), meanwhile, said there were many students in government schools who dropped out because their parents shifted to their native places and they didn’t have gadgets to continue classes from there.
“But parents of almost all private school students, including those studying in big-budget schools (where the annual fee is Rs1 lakh or above) or low-budget schools (where the annual fee is less than Rs80,000) in the city or in remote areas, have shifted their wards to smaller or government schools,” he said.
According to Kataria, the main reason for the migration was financial stress and the inability to pay fees. “We did a Google survey recently to understand how many parents consented to reopening schools in the current situation. We found that about 30% to 40% private schools, which are recognised up to class 8 (mostly running out of rented buildings), were not functioning as they were waiting for students to return,” Kataria said.
District programme officer Atul Soni, meanwhile, said of the seven children orphaned due to the pandemic in GB Nagar six were school-going. DIOS Singh maintained that a 100% fees waiver for orphaned children have been arranged by the officials in cooperation with schools. “It’s heartening to note that not a single school opposed this move and agreed to extend a fee waiver,” Singh told TOI.
