School closures and quarantine have had tremendous impact on the lives of school going children. UNESCO says that the education of nearly 1.6 billion children in 190 countries has been affected. Not being in a structured environment and not having the chance to interact with their friends regularly can lead to many emotional and mental health issues in the future and delay their cognitive and social development. On the other hand, closing schools can be useful in controlling the spread of the virus among the students. Additionally, it also protects the more vulnerable populations like the grandparents who would be at severe risk if the children in their house went to school every day and risked transmission of the disease.
According to an article on the BBC website, the effect of this will be seen disproportionately widening the educational divide between the rich and the poor. The financially disadvantaged students will have a much harder time catching up with their rich friends due to lack of resources. Even though schools have moved to online instruction as a way to combat that, it will be successful when every child has access to laptops, good internet connection and a conducive home environment. Unfortunately, that is not the case for children living in poverty or in over-crowded households. A recent study from the UK has found that richer kids “are spending about 30% more time on home learning than kids from poor families.”
Mental health of children is most definitely a cause for concern and closing schools exacerbates that. Not only are students not meeting with their friends and interacting with their teachers, schools also provide mental health services on campus. For many vulnerable students this is the only mental health resource that is accessible the them. Conducting mental health consultations online is possible but it has the same issues as online learning. Students need reliable technology and a degree of privacy for this to be successful.
Another issue, outlined by the Lancet, is how school closures would affect the availability of health care professionals and thus contribute to cumulative mortality. Since children are not able to go to school, their responsibility falls on the care givers. This could lead to the potential loss of health care workers, leading to greater mortality rates.
There is no right answer yet and there are arguments supporting both sides. The support of the government in these situations becomes paramount. Providing access to technology and safe spaces for students to continue their learning from home is one way a part of this problem can be mitigated. Concerted effort from everyone, parents, children, school teachers, school counselors and psychiatrists is required to deal with this problem.
By: Sanya Bansal