It’s time we called 2020 a gap year

It’s time to call 2020 a gap year. Let our young learn invaluable life lessons from a global pandemic, the likes of which the world has not seen in a hundred years.

Our children are living in an unprecedented period of history when over 43 million people worldwide and over 7.9 million in India have been infected by Covid-19. They are living in the new normal of digital lessons, remote study, sans the physical experience of a classroom. Their lives have forever changed.

In April 2020, UNESCO estimated that because of the pandemic, some 1.4 billion students had been affected by school closures in nearly 166 countries. In India alone, some 320 million students were affected by school and college closures. UNESCO has called it the largest education disruption ever.

Commendably, most schools, colleges and universities quickly switched to the digital platform to deliver their classes, so as to ensure that the academic year was not lost for their students. However, a digital classroom can never replace the ‘touch and feel’ experience of a physical classroom. No virtual laboratory class can bring alive a science experiment; no digital coaching can bring alive the adrenaline rush of a sports arena; and no online drama coaching can bring alive the magic of theatre.

As the US and other countries closed their borders to international students, Indian students who had secured admission in international institutions, found that their online classes did not give them the in-class experience of a foreign campus. They missed the interaction with faculty, peer learning and the real-life cultural experience of travelling to another country. Many Indian students decided to defer their admission and opted to treat 2020 as a gap year.

It has not been much different for students studying in the country. Parents share the same home space to work from home as their home-schooled children. While middle grade and secondary school children appear to be managing all right with their online lessons, it’s not been the same with primary school children. Parents not only have to supervise their digital lessons, it’s also difficult to hold young children’s attention on a digital screen and a remote teacher. So much so, most young parents have resigned themselves to the inevitability of losing an academic year for their primary school children.

Gap year

Research has proved that students who take a year off from formal education -- usually taken between school and college -- come back with a rich life experience, refreshed and with the ability to make better decisions on their electives for graduate study. Educational institutions in the West encourage students to take gap years and accumulate credits.

Students use the gap year to travel, explore other cultures, experience life as it happens. Sometimes, they take up volunteering with NGOs. The Gap Year Association of the US, which helps students navigate the gap year, says “Intentional gap years benefit students in some profound ways: Providing clarity and purpose, the student will have a better grasp on what they want to study; Improving learning and business potential with a global background that is tested in the real world.”

The good news is that Indian college students, too, can now opt for a gap year. With the approval of the National Education Policy 2020 this year, students can enter their degree programme through multiple entries and exit points, instead of the rigid semester system. They can save the credits they accrue digitally. In fact, the National Law School of India University is reported to have offered a gap year for students who are not comfortable with online classes.

While the gap year is an accepted system for students between school and college or in the middle of their graduate study, what about school students?

Given the uncertainty prevailing over the safe reopening of schools or the safe conduct of exams, it’s time the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) came up with clear guidelines for schools so that they too can give their students the option of treating 2020 as a gap year, guilt-free. They should also provide a credit system so that school students can re-enter their school programme easily later on.

However, the nature of the gap year programme has to change, as travel, internships or volunteering options, involving social contact are ruled out, given the risk of Covid-19 infection. So, it’s up to the educational institutions and educationists to come up with innovative programmes for their school students. Credits could be considered for online projects revolving around the pandemic; virtual internships on climate change; sustainable living or a gardening project. Schoolchildren could be induced to improve existing skills or acquire new ones – like learning a new language, learning a new musical instrument, reading out-of- curriculum books, writing about their life experience of the pandemic, learning to paint, and so on.

As Mark Twain famously said, “Don’t let school get in the way of your education.”

(The writer is a Bengaluru-based freelance journalist)