Odisha survey reveals 56% children have not attended any classes post-pandemic

By A Representative
The Learning Recovery Programme (LRP) has been taken up by the state government's Odisha School Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) to provide a learning opportunity to students to make up for losses in studies due to the closure of schools on account of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, lack of awareness among children and their parents and absence of robust monitoring have blocked its effective implementation, reveals a pilot fact-finding study conducted by the NGO Atmashakti Trust.
The pilot study was conducted with school-going children in two blocks of the Nuapada district, where over 500 grassroots workers divided into 33 groups visited 68 schools in one day and interviewed 115 children to understand the implementation of LRP.
The study was a part of its 26-day nationwide campaign, "Education Cannot Wait. Act Now!" which kickstarted on November 15, comprising Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, where they will interview over 4,000 students from 2,000 schools to understand the effectiveness of learning recovery programs in these states and share findings to state governments for making their learning recovery program successful.
Out of the total 115 students interviewed, 54% do not know about LRP, 56% have not attended any class, 39% of students reported that the baseline assessment had not been conducted, 55% of students said that LRP has not yet started in schools, and 38% of students complained that they had not received any materials on LRP.
"LRP was something we had demanded before the state government to address learning gaps of children who could not get it due to prolonged school closure. However, the result of the pilot fact-finding report is shocking. If this is the result of the study in only two blocks of Nuapada, this can be an alarming trend to be looked after," said Ruchi Kashyap, executive trustee of Atmashakti Trust, the organization which conducted the study.
The absence of an effective monitoring system at the district and block level and lack of mass awareness among children and their parents limit end-users benefits of the scheme, she added.
In May this year, the state government stated in its report that 30% of students are not returning to school after classes resumed and the overall attendance in higher secondary classes was abysmally low in Gajapati, Sonepur, Baragarh, Kandhamal, and Nuapada. And, Nuapada district reported the highest number (896) of school dropouts.
Following this, the Odisha government's apex body OSEPA announced the start of a 3-months long Learning Recovery Programme (LRP) in 55745 government and government-aided schools in the state for students of classes 3 to 9 in September 2022.

Comments

The soundtrack of resistance: How 'Sada Sada Ya Nabi' is fueling the Iran war

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* The Persian track “ Sada Sada Ya Nabi ye ” by Hossein Sotoodeh has taken the world by storm. This viral media has cut across linguistic barriers to achieve cult status, reaching over 10 million views. The electrifying music and passionate rendition by the Iranian singer have resonated across the globe, particularly as the high-intensity military conflict involving Iran entered its second month in March 2026.

Lata Mangeshkar, a Dalit from Devdasi family, 'refused to sing a song' about Ambedkar

By Pramod Ranjan* An artist is known and respected for her art. But she is equally, or even more so known and respected for her social concerns. An artist's social concerns or in other words, her worldview, give a direction and purpose to her art. History remembers only such artists whose social concerns are deep, reasoned and of durable importance. Lata Mangeshkar (28 September 1929 – 6 February 2022) was a celebrated playback singer of the Hindi film industry. She was the uncrowned queen of Indian music for over seven decades. Her popularity was unmatched. Her songs were heard and admired not only in India but also in Pakistan, Bangladesh and many other South Asian countries. In this article, we will focus on her social concerns. Lata lived for 92 long years. Music ran in her blood. Her father also belonged to the world of music. Her two sisters, Asha Bhonsle and Usha Mangeshkar, are well-known singers. Lata might have been born in Indore but the blood of a famous Devdasi family...

'Batteries now cheap enough for solar to meet India's 90% demand': Expert quotes Ember study

By A Representative Shankar Sharma, Power & Climate Policy Analyst, has urged India’s top policymakers to reconsider the financial and ecological implications of the country’s energy transition strategy in light of recent global developments. In a letter dated April 10, 2026, addressed to the Union Ministers of Finance, Power, New & Renewable Energy, Environment, Forest & Climate Change, and the Vice Chair of NITI Aayog, with a copy to the Prime Minister, Sharma highlighted concerns over India’s ambitious plans for coal gasification and the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR).

Manufacturing, services: India's low-skill, middle-skill labour remains underemployed

By Francis Kuriakose* The Indian economy was in a state of deceleration well before Covid-19 made its impact in early 2020. This can be inferred from the declining trends of four important macroeconomic variables that indicate the health of the economy in the last quarter of 2019.

Incarceration of Prof Saibaba 'revives' the question: What is crime, who is criminal?

By Kunal Pant* In 2016, a Supreme Court Judge asked the state of Maharashtra, “Do you want to extract a pound of flesh?” The statement was directed against the state for contesting the bail plea of Delhi University Professor GN Saibaba. Saibaba was arrested in 2014, a justification for which was to prevent him from committing what the police called “anti-national activities.”

Food security? Gujarat govt puts more than 5 lakh ration cards in the 'silent' category

By Pankti Jog* A new statistical report uploaded by the Gujarat government on the national food security portal shows that ensuring food security for the marginalized community is still not a priority of the state. The statistical report, uploaded on December 24, highlights many weaknesses in implementing the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in state.

Why Indo-Pak relations have been on 'knife’s edge' , hostilities may remain for long

By Utkarsh Bajpai* The past few decades have seen strides being made in all aspects of life – from sticks and stones to weaponry. The extreme case of this phenomenon has been nuclear weapons. The menace caused by nuclear weapons in the past is unforgettable. Images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from 1945 come to mind, after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the cities.

Kolkata dialogue flags policy and finance deficit in wetland sustainability

By A Representative Wetlands were the focus of India–Germany climate talks in Kolkata, where experts from government, business, and civil society stressed both their ecological importance and the urgent need for stronger conservation frameworks.

Subaltern voices go digital: Three Indian projects rewriting history from the ground up

By A Representative A new wave of digital humanities (DH) work in India is shifting the focus away from university classrooms and English-language scholarship, instead prioritizing multilingual, community-driven archives that amplify subaltern voices . According to a review published in the Journal of Asian Studies , projects such as the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), the Oral History Narmada archive , and the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre are redefining how the country remembers its past — often without government funding or institutional support.

Search This Blog