Children of the rich families have access to online and TV-based alternative means of education introduced by the government and private institutes for continuing education at schools, colleges and universities during the general holiday declared amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Since 44 per cent households in the country have no TV and even a greater number of people has no access to the internet, a huge number of children from the poor families would lose interest in continuing education, according to a report of a local daily.
The main reason is that parents of these children became jobless or are facing acute financial crisis for the coronavirus outbreak in the country, losing the capacity to send them to schools again. The dropout rate, according to Directorate of Primary Education, was 17 per cent. But the rate could increase to 30 per cent again as their parents become jobless or are facing serious economic crisis for the prolonged holidays.
This would occur mainly due to the fact that the children would be forced by their parents to go into income generating activities which would make even more of them dropout from schools. Statistical modelling shows that the poverty rate would rise to 40 per cent from 20 per cent due to the impact of Covid-19.
In this time the government should review some pending problems during the holiday like reforming the education system, executing policies and increasing allocation of more budget for education in the next fiscal year. The government should think of giving subsidies the poorest families like free lunches or breakfast to ensure that the kids remain in school. They should also try to subsidise their families food by giving them household essentials at reduced prices so their parents dont feel the need to make their children go to work by bunking school.
