India: Online classes during COVID-19 badly hit children’s writing skills, survey finds

Patna: Online classes have badly affected the writing skills of schoolchildren in Bihar and other states in India.

While around 75 per cent of the children had their handwriting turning uglier, 65 per cent of them almost forgot how to write and from where to begin, a latest study has found.

The startling facts came to light during the All India School Education Survey conducted by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), an autonomous organisation of the Government of India set up to assist the qualitative improvement in school education in the country.

The survey conducted between March 2020 and February 2021 involved schoolchildren from some 10,000 government and private schools. The children involved in the survey included those in Grade four to Grade 10.

The study found that the online classes left the children’s handwriting turning messy as they focused their attention mainly on listening to the teachers rather than noting down in their notebooks.

“The closure of schools for long time as a result of COVID-19 outbreak has left a bitter impact on the writing skills of children. The speed of writing has also reduced among most of the children. They are unable to write further after completing two-three lines,” said Arun Kumar, a member of the All India School Education Survey, NCERT.

According to officials, the children also lost confidence and their hands started trembling when asked to write something.

Notebooks locked in shelves

The situation reached this level, NCERT officials said, as children’s notebooks remained locked in shelves. They said although the teachers taught children during online classes, they hardly asked them to write it down. “Some 70 per cent schoolchildren almost never took out their notebooks from the shelves,” they said.

Moreover, the teachers would often send PDF of the study material to the children who memorised them by rote, rather than writing in the notebook and practicing, the survey said. The general complaint is that children’ hands started trembling once they are asked to write something.

“The handwriting of most of the children has turned uglier. We are focusing on improving this and trying to bring it back on track,” said Father Sudhakar, principal of Loyola High School in Patna.

Similar concern was raised by the principal of another prominent private school in Patna. “Many children are having problems in writing. They are getting stuck midway after writing two-three lines. That is because they never practiced and their confidence level is very low,” said principal VS Ojha.

The situation is not limited to Bihar. Similar reports have come from Jharkhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. According to the study, in Jharkhand state 74 per cent of schoolchildren have forgotten how to write, while 66 per cent of them had their handwriting turning very messy. Similarly, handwriting of 54 per cent children has got badly affected in Delhi while in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, the percentage of such children is 60.