Well qualified and dynamic human resources are crucial for the progress of a nation. Countries having a sound education system have remarkably progressed in every walk of life. It has become universally accepted that quality learning starts in the early school years of a child. Similarly, learning poverty is also related to primary education. According to World Bank, Learning poverty means being unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10. Unfortunately, many developing countries, including Pakistan, are still unable to provide satisfactory educational opportunities to their people in a qualitative manner and facing the issue of learning poverty.
Pakistan is already very poor in terms of student learning and COVID-19 has further enhanced it. According to the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) published in February 2020, 45% of children studying in the fifth standard in rural areas of Pakistan could not read grade two level English sentences. The report also tells that only 59% of fifth-grade students could not read stories in Urdu and other local languages, which are included in the syllabus of the second standard. Furthermore, only 57% of grade five students can solve a two-digit division problem meant for pupils in Class II. These were facts and figures about the condition of quality education in our country before the prevalence of the covid-19 pandemic situation. However, When COVID-19 attacked our education system the situation got more severe, and learning poverty increased rapidly. A recent World Bank report in the title of ‘learning poverty’ revealed that learning losses in Pakistan due to Covid-19. Closure of schools has predicted that learning poverty in the country might rise to 79% from the present 75%. So, on one hand, the number of out-of-school children is increasing, on the other hand, learning poverty is increasing as well due to Covid-19. Hence, to overcome this burning issue, every Pakistani citizens need to take it seriously and play their role to improve the situation according to their capacities. The government of Pakistan has taken some serious steps about the issue. As per the government guidance and directions, Pakistan Television Corporation (PTV) had broadcasted educational programs in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education & Professional Training during the COVID-19. The initiative of the government like Tele-School has the potential to improve the situation. However, the question arise here that do the students have the facility of television available in the far-flung and border areas of Pakistan?
A statistic report of Pakistan telecommunication authority reported in BBC.com on 14th July 2020, that about 40 million Pakistani children have access to television. While another survey reported in the USIP block on April 2020, that Pakistan Television (PTV) covers 90 percent of Pakistan’s territory and Sixty-three percent of Pakistani households have televisions. Moreover, some of the countryside areas are facing electricity issues as well. If they have a TV facility but the timing of the tele school is not appropriate for those areas where electricity is not stable and mini-hydropower station functioning only at evening time. In a nutshell, it can be said that the initiative taken by the government and PTV is commendable, however, due to the mentioned issues, students could not benefit from the tele-school as expected.
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What can be done to benefit from Tele-School and what role The Leaders, Community, and Teachers would play in it?
Firstly, the school leadership needs to motivate community members of their surroundings to change the functioning timing of mini-hydropower stations so that students learning may not suffer. Secondly, school leadership can also play a role to encourage community members and local cabal teams to record or download the lectures or teaching materials and telecast them at a mutually agreed time for locals. The schools are closed or either it opened on shifting system, the students will not get the time and support what was expected before COVID-19 therefore, it seems that the level of Learning poverty will further increase. Learning poverty is not the only issue confined to the education system it will affect our economy as well. The World Bank’s report also says that, if this damage is not remedied in Pakistan, the country in the next 20 years could incur a loss of between $67bn and $155bn in GDP at its current value. If so, being a responsible citizen having multiples roles as parents, teachers, community members, educationists, and policymaker need to play their role to overcome this burning issue before it gets worse than ever. Moreover, in the current scenario of learning poverty, the roles of ECD/primary teachers could not be neglected because they are associated with the students’ ages 3 to 10 and directly influence their learning outcomes. Although, it is on the shoulder of school leaders to support and utilize the talent of their teachers to improve the learning poverty during and after the COVID-19 pandemic situation. School management needs to provide such a facility and platform where the teachers can record or make videos of their lesson, and the community needs to play the role to broadcast through local cable.
In this way, we can manage learning opportunities for those students who have access to television, but what could be done for those who have no such facility, is a sweltering question for all of us?
Even if Tele-School doesn’t work, we can teach off-line with study packs.
One of the NGOs, Aga Khan Education Service for Pakistan (AKES, P), is working in resource constraint areas of Pakistan and providing study packs for their students who have no access to any digital resource to continue their educational journey during the current pandemic situation. These study packs and other resources were developed by their professional teachers and academic coordinators. They have created videos, audios, and developed notebook activities for all grades. As one of the academic coordinators told us about the distribution of study packs among the students. He explained that preparation of the study pack and its distribution for each student was not an easy task rather it became possible only due to the loyalty of teachers and their spirit of teamwork. As concern about the impact of the study pack, he said that those students who did their home activities performed well in a test after the school was open. It was seen that the students who had slow learning ability had shown rather good output as compared to their previous performances.
So, I would suggest that if the other schools in the rural areas take the AKES, P’s initiative as a benchmark and work accordingly during and after COVID-19, it would be a good contribution to minimize the learning poverty in rural and border districts of the country. As we know that challenges are part of life and there are no such problems that cannot be resolved. As far as learning poverty is concerned, it can be overcome when all the stakeholders like school leaders, teachers, community members, and parents come on the same page and properly utilize the available resources and make them beneficial for any challenging situation like Covid-19.
