Chinks in the armour

The Covid crisis has revealed many shortcomings in India's school education system

Every year as March approaches, dread, anticipation, tension, anxiety and even excitement build up as students across India sit for their board examinations, a larger-than-life test that shapes their future more than it ought to.

The anticlimactic blow to students countrywide as they looked forward to putting these few tension filled weeks behind can only be felt by those who experienced it but parents across the country have found themselves bewildered by the unexpected shutdown of schools — one of the fallouts of the virus that has the world in its grip.

It is estimated that India has approximately 248 million school-going