Details

Date and time

Sat, 27 November 2021

19:00 - 21:00 IST

Join us for a conversation on caste, covid-19 and the public education system in India.

The foundations of academic freedom as a basic human right include the ability, capacity and right to think, and the nurturing of a critical consciousness. As India went into lockdown within hours in March 2020, the government fast-tracked its "New Education Policy 2020" and also announced its drive for "online education".

A year and half on, emerging analyses show that a significant proportion of school students from the most socio-economically marginalised communities have not only lost more than a year of education but are also forgetting their prior learnings. Access to and continuation of higher education has also been significantly affected.

Education experts have also been expressing concerns regarding many aspects of the NEP2020, including its casteisst underpinnings that will encourage re-establishment of graded inequality in Indian society, and the NEP's celebration of online education.

This webinar will discuss the harms and benefits of the online education project instituted during the Covid pandemic and the New Education Policy 2020 (NEP2020) on the public education system in India.

Panellists

 Akram Dhalait, Independent Researcher, Maharashtra, India, Research Team Member, The School Children's Online and Offline Learning (SCHOOL) Study

 Beena Pallical, General Secretary, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), Delhi, India

 Gunjan Sharma, Faculty Member, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi, India

Moderators

 Mohit Verma, Bahujan Economists; Research Team Member, SCHOOL Study; Research Associate, Good Business Lab, India

 Maithri, Research Master's in Cultural Analysis, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

REGISTER HERE: shorturl.at/lmCJO

Further Reading

Locked Out: Emergency report on school Education (2021). The SCHOOL Team, India

Field Studies in Education (2015-2021). Azim Premji University, India. A series of reports covering various aspects of public education in India.

Confronting the pandemic: response and recovery for Dalit and Adivasi students (2021). National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, India.

This webinar is co-hosted by InSAF India, India Civil Watch International, Ambedkar King Study Circle (California), Scholars At Risk, the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA), University of Amsterdam, The Forum on Education in Asia (UCL), and the SIU University Honors Program