How Has The Current Lockdown Situation Impacted A Student's Career?
Coronavirus pandemic has emerged as a formidable challenge to humanity. The worsening health crisis prompted governments across the world to impose lockdown. In India too, all schools and colleges were temporarily shut down as a precautionary measure by the government.
The temporary measure to close down educational institutions had a domino’s effect on the entire education sector. From board examinations to competitive exams in universities, everything got cancelled, much to the horror of students who are stuck in the limbo and are staring at the wastage of an academic year.
Impact of lockdown on schools
The school lockdown disrupted academic activity immensely. To start with, there were no nursery admissions in schools; similarly, board examinations across the nation were cancelled. One of the significant drawbacks of the lockdown was the complete breakdown of the teaching system in the majority of our schools.
In our country, most of the state-run government schools and a large number of low-income private schools do not have access to technology-driven e-learning solutions. As the vast majority of students are admitted in these schools, there is complete floundering of their academic activities.
On the other hand, only a small number of private schools, with limited enrolled students, have the ability to impart education, through e-learning programs.
The lack of e-learning facilities due to paucity of resources is a significant roadblock today. It has severely dented the continuation of the academic session in the majority of our schools. With no certainty emerging on the schedule for reopening of schools, the bleak outlook for students is likely to continue in the immediate future.
Colleges and Universities
Not just schools even the academic session in colleges and universities are impacted severely. The significant disruption in higher education is, however, limited in scale because of access to e-learning solutions.
The situation is, however, different for students applying for courses in various universities abroad. The pandemic badly hits many of the countries where students migrate to study—these countries such as USA, China, UK. Etc have barred the intake of international students in the present academic year.
Similarly, students who have applied for higher education within the country are also feeling the pressure because of the mass cancellation of entrance exams in these universities. However, there are various initiatives taken by private individuals and socities to ensure students can study online from the comfort of their homes.
Job Scenario
The long term impact of the pandemic on various sectors is still under review, but the short term repercussions on the economy are beginning to take its toll on students.
Due to faltering economic activity, most of the graduates, around 33 lakh from arts, commerce and related fields and 16 lakh from engineering and management field are facing grim professional job scenario. Most of the companies have deferred the interviews for fresh hiring of students due to stagnant growth and uncertain economic activity.
As the businesses are affected worldwide, private companies are less enthusiastic and have scaled-down their attendance to hire students through on-campus placement drives.
In cases where jobs are being offered, the companies have postponed the joining dates and in some cases even withdrawn the appointments.
According to the estimate, the slump in employment activity has pushed the early April unemployment rate to 23 per cent from 8.4 per cent in March. The worrying part is, the urban unemployment rate could be as high as 30.9 per cent.
Sensing the fear of fresh graduates to the withdrawal of job offers the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has urged the corporates to honour their job commitments.
There is no denying the fact that the enforced lockdown has jeopardized the already stressed job market. The slowing economy will further deteriorate the prospects of students to secure job.
Under present circumstances, the students who have availed education loans for higher studies are facing a double whammy. Not only faltering job prospects even loan repayment is a major headache for them.
Summary
The lockdown has disrupted the education sector immensely and threatened the education of 285 million students temporarily. With the pandemic situation worsening and no respite in sight due to lockdown, the students have to bear the maximum brunt of the emerging scenario. The long term impact of the pandemic induced lockdown on students will be assessed only later, but the aspirations of young learners are curtailed for now.
