On 13th of August, the Rural Management Programme of Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS), Ranchi and UNICEF Jharkhand took up an initiative to conduct a webinar on “Covid-19 and its impact on Child education.

The panelists included Dr. Jospeh Marianus Kujur, SJ, Director XISS; Mr. Uma Shankar Singh, IAS and Director of JCERT; Dr. Anant Kumar, Associate Professor, XISS, Ranchi; Dr. Nishant Goyal, Associate Professor, Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi; Ms. Parul Sharma and Ms. Suman Sachdeva from UNICEF along with various alumni working in world renowned organisations and students from XISS participated in the webinar.

Dr. Anant Kumar stated that 40 percent of the students are deprived of resources needed for online classes and due to the same reason many students have attempted suicide.

Dr. Joseph Marianus Kujur, SJ, Director XISS gave the welcome note and set the context of the webinar topic by introducing the relevance of this webinar in today’s scenario and presented findings of a case study conducted by him in MP, where he talked about the challenges faced by tribal and backward classes societies in attending online classes.

Then the session was continued by Ms. Parul Sharma Education Specialist, Jharkhand where she talked about the coping mechanisms and vulnerability at the times of lockdown on different age groups children.

Mr. Uma Shankar Singh emphasized that no digitizing school system can substitute physical school system. He further stated that attributes like social culture values, comradeship, respecting diversity can be taught only when the children are physically present at one place.

Mr. Nishant Goel, highlighted the points on the importance of parenting. He focused on the role of parents having non judgmental behavior towards their children during this pandemic.

The session was concluded by Ms. Suman, UNICEF Education Specialists, Delhi where she highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on girl’s education, the gender digital divide in attending online classes as they have less access to technology. She further shared the several work done by UNICEF and state governments scheme and programs to promote girl’s education. The session ended with the vote of thanks by Dr. Rajshree Verma.

There was an active participation of 186 members from faculty of XISS, Alumni and students of Rural Management Programme of XISS.