Education during COVID – The Reek of Privilege

Trigger Warning: Mentions of death and trauma

Education has been an inseparable part of our lives since inception. Growing up listening to relatives talk about how someone scored better than their own son had not only instilled a feeling of competitiveness, it also made us think how we had to succeed at every thing we even remotely tried to do for fun. Since the very beginning, students grew up with the baggage of unrealistic expectations of their parents and had to match a bar set as high as “Sharma Ji ka beta.”

When the novel coronavirus broke out and the world started shutting down against its own will, education was bound to take a back seat. With India (and many more countries) going into complete lockdown in March 2020, all educational institutions adapted a digital mode of learning. The first lockdown, however, seemed to lead to creative ways of learning for many people. Students started getting used to the online mode of teaching, social media sites like Instagram bloomed with extremely talented artists by letting people use their talents in a fruitful manner. Many of us took up activities we didn’t know we were even capable of doing; cooking became a new passion. From “dalgona coffee” to people making banana bread every other day, the first lockdown was nothing less than a productivity contest.

As a result, the country started opening up in July 2020, with everyone returning to normal ways of life by the New Year. Little did anyone know the second wave of COVID-19 would hit all of us like a truck. Every Indian household glued their eyes to the news channels in order to receive something that might make us believe that the world was about to revive itself. Instead, the cases started increasing like fire in a forest, leaving no one untouched. Mental health has not been the most suitable topic of discussion, especially in Indian families. The pandemic, however, affected individuals mentally as it did physically. Colleges and schools, however, did not give up. We – the students – had tons of assignments and deadlines. In a world where the ambulance sirens do not go off even at 4am in the morning, students are expected to cater to assignments that might not even be evaluated later on. Studying and being able to afford healthcare at this crucial time is a luxury.

It did not take a lot of time for the virus to take over the country. One in every three families was affected with COVID, making education seem like an expectation no one had the energy to meet. When the world is in shambles, exams do not seem like something anyone would really ponder over. In a time when everyone was struggling for basic healthcare, being well is a distant dream. Speaking from a place of privilege, not for a moment did I think that students should be forced into being productive and should be studying for their exams specially when everyone is so uncertain of what the future holds.

Being tech-savvy, most of us took over social media sites like Instagram and Twitter to create COVID helplines and help people find oxygen beds and oxygen cylinders. It’s disturbing to see how people couldn’t find basic medicines after a while. How, in such a crucial situation, is someone supposed to be in the right frame of mind to pursue their college/school education? How do boards exam seem of utmost important in front of a human life? How exactly would someone be able to study when even their relatives/friends are not okay? “It’s not just students but also teachers who’re suffering. So many of the professors and their families have gone through COVID so it’s just unfair on everyone as a whole to keep functioning like normal,” said one of my friends in a conversation about the same topic.

Not only this, the fact that many of us tried our level best to help people find beds, many of the patients did not survive the turmoil and pain and succumbed to the virus. Reading about so many people dying is not a part of normal life. Hence, it is safe to say that this lockdown has not only seemed to be one of the biggest stressors for human life, it has also made people unsure of whether they have a future or not.

Education, in my opinion, no matter how important, is not more crucial than human life. Putting unrealistic standards of expectations on students is all the educational system has been doing since the inception of time. The fact that this generation went through a pandemic is going to be written in the unkempt pages of history. If that does not make the educational institutions take a step back to revaluate the educational system and feel the gravity of the pandemic and its never-ending traumatic effect on everyone, I don’t know what will.