‘More than 91% parents want 2020 as ‘zero’ academic year’
MEERUT : In an online survey, conducted by a sociologist, majority of parents from western Uttar Pradesh and national capital region (NCR) have supported the idea of declaring 2020 as ‘zero’ academic year in schools.
They support the idea to promote students to next class without conducting exams in wake of prevailing crisis of pandemic and danger to children’s lives.
Sociologist Dr Uzma Naaz conducted the survey between June 12 and 14 under the guidance of her mentor Prof Dharamvir Mahajan and placed 15 questions in different WhatsApp groups of national capital region, Gurugram and Western UP and received overwhelming response from over 10,000 parents, grandparents and other guardians of children.
The questions were largely related to children’s safety. For example, whether well-being of children is important or educational career, fees during period of lockdown, can schools adhere to the guidelines of social distancing, hygiene and whether schools are a safe zone for children during pandemic.
Survey shows that 91.3 per cent of the parents were in favour of declaring 2020 as zero academic years so that the child is not sent to school and is promoted.
Uzma said, “Everyday we receive many messages on social media about sort of trauma, both social and economic, parents are undergoing since the lockdown and they look confused and concerned for well-being and education career of their children. But, don’t know how to reach out to the policy makers make them listen to their concern and their voice.”
“This is why I decided to conduct a survey and to forward the outcome to some journals and media to raise the voice and concern of parents,” said Uzma.
According to her, 77.5 per cent of men and 22.5 per cent of women participated in this survey, of which 84.3 percent were parents, 5.5 per cent grandparents, 1.2 maternal grandparents and 8.9 per cent other guardians.
The highest , 40.1 per cent among these were parents or guardian of students from class one to five, 21.6 per cent were parents of students from class 6 to 8, 20 per cent were elders of students from class 9 to 12. Significantly 18.4 per cent were parents of nursery to UKG children.
Dr Uzma said all the parents had given their first preference to the wellbeing of the child rather than their educational career during pandemic.
The parents feel that when
› Everyday we receive many messages on social media about sort of trauma parents are undergoing since the lockdown and they look confused and concerned for well-being and education career of their children. DR UZMA NAAZ , Sociologist
they had not sent a child to a hobby class, sports or birthday party in the neighbourhood since the lockdown till date, how they could even think of sending their child to school.
More than 97 per cent of the parents feel that during pandemic, schools were not at all safe zone for kids as ensuring total adherence of social distancing, hygiene and cleanliness by the students would be more than an impossible task for the teachers, said Dr Uzma.
Talking about the responsibility factor in wake of a child getting infected with coronavirus while going to school, Dr Uzma said 54.2 per cent of the parents have attributed it to the school management and 45.3 per cent to themselves.
Whereas, 74 per cent said that they would not send their child to school without taking in writing from school that the school guarantee the safety of their child.
Dr Uzma said that 84.3 per cent of the parents were quoted by the World Health Organization as saying that it would not be possible for their child to keep masks in school for 6 consecutive hours, while 15.7 per cent considered it possible. Apart from this, 96.8 percent have declared school buses as completely unsafe vis a vis social distancing.
A majority of 81.8 per cent of parents have feared the possibility of Coronavirus infection through copies and books checked in the school.
82 per cent of the parents are in favour of not giving fees for this period on the basis of orders of Noida district magistrate who waived fees of all schools during the lockdown.