Understanding the impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Primary School-aged Children in Sindh: A Contextual Analysis of Post-Pandemic Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51872/prjah.vol6.Iss1.312Keywords:
Applied Anthropology; COVID-19; Digital divide; Government school; Hyderabad; Pakistan.Abstract
COVID-19 has changed the way we lived, worked and learnt. It has adversely impacted everyone, especially the most vulnerable groups: people with disabilities, senior citizens and children. The negative effects on children's health, socio-psychological development, and intellectual advancement are regarded to be unprecedented in recent human history. This paper examines the educational system of Hyderabad, a city in Sindh, Pakistan during COVID-19 and it investigates the negative effects on children and their school learning. This study is interdisciplinary, focusing on Applied Anthropology and Education policy and pedagogy. Mixed methods both qualitative as well as quantitative are used to collect and analyse the data. For qualitative data collection, ethnographic research methods such as participant observation, semi-structured interviews and case study are used. Surveys through digital sources such as email, WhatsApp, Facebook and SMS are implied to collect quantitative data. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in a Government Primary School (GPS), Hyderabad, Pakistan. The findings of the study reveal that post COVID-19 has impacted the school learning and experience of educational attainment in multiple ways to the primary school aged going children. Moreover, it has also revealed the uneven socio-economic opportunities for learning, and discloses the government's inability to reach out to the most vulnerable class of the society in the time of emergency.
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