4 March 2022

My children last entered their school gates on March 10, 2020, weeks before India’s national lockdown was announced. Two years on, schools in much of the country remain closed. Some states went against the tide and reopened in 2021—but only partially, limiting attendance to higher grades and only half the student body on a given day. Each time cases surged, schools were the first to close and only restarted in person months after every other economic activity had resumed.

The physical classroom has been replaced by the Zoom room, where my children wave to their friends and talk to their teachers through a little box. The emotional, developmental, and learning costs of this transition from the classroom to the Zoom room are visible every day.