With primary schools reopening after close to two years, little did guardians realize that the kids would be exposed to the elements almost from Day One in course of the belated search of learning. As it turns out, the decision to hold open air classes on the model of Santiniketan’s Patha Bhavan was utterly disingenuous in Kolkata not the least because of the city’s humidity and the unusually prolonged monsoon.

As children took baby-steps to school this week, little did the parents anticipate that they would fall ill ~ even throw up ~ in the afternoon sun. To that has been added the forecast of rain this week, rather unusual at this time of year. Indeed, the humidity and the rain have prompted guardians to demand that classes from the pre-primary level to Class 8 ought to be held in classrooms. While this courts the risk of infection, the sun and the rain have rendered many children unwell at the threshold of learning.

In the circumstances, it would seem holding classes within the four walls of a room is undoubtedly safer than instruction being conveyed outdoors. The drum-beating over the West Bengal government’s Paray Shikshalay project has meant little or no progress in the overall construct. A thought needs to be spared for the children. Digital learning, for all the provisions in this year’s Budget, has largely come a cropper.

Outdoor learning has scarcely benefited the taught. Children are throwing up as they attend classes sitting on the ground, and without shade. The ground is bound to become slushy once it rains, and it would be unreasonable to expect classes to resume in such circumstances. On certain days, the children are exposed to the midday sun and on other days to the rain. The health of the child is at risk. Of course in some schools, a makeshift shelter has been erected by the local KMC councillor. But such structures are inherently brittle.

While there is only so much any administration can do, it is unfortunate that students across the state are suffering. Parents, as concerned over the unseasonal rain as by the heat after Kolkata’s pleasant winter, are generally agreed that classes must immediately be shifted to school buildings, and seem to think the risk of falling ill outdoors outweighs that of a Covid infection.

Primary students of a school in north Kolkata are attending classes at the Baghbazar Sarbojanin ground, which is in the news once every year for hosting the Durga puja. In the city, classes are being held in parks while in the rural areas classes are being conducted in open grounds. Even as makeshift arrangements, the facilities are far from desirable. A generation is at risk of having to suffer the consequences of inadequate learning