Role Of The Ngos In The COVID -19 Pandemic Towards Ensuring Continued Education Of The Children From The Marginalized Communities In The State Of Maharashtra

Abstract

“A Nation that has not taken its education into its own hands cannot soon rise in literary, social or political importance” – LokmanyaTilak

LokmanyaTilak was the pioneer in promoting quality education in India. Although India has been on the path of ensuring quality education to all the children, it is the recent COVID pandemic that has derailed this development path. The pandemic has thrown out key loopholes in our educational system where the children from the vulnerable and marginalized sections of the society have been pushed out of the education system. It shows that there is still a long path towards realizing LokmanyaTilak’s vision of universal education. It is in this context that a study was undertaken to bring focus on the challenges faced by the vulnerable children in pursuing education in the time of COVID pandemic.

Maharashtra has a long history of progressive movements and social work. It was found that the NGOs and social workers played an important role in reaching out to these children even in the Pandemic. Hence, the paper specifically focuses on the role played by these NGOs. A total of nine NGOs participated in this study. Telephone interviews were conducted with the social workers of the NGOs. The study provides an important account of the challenges of the vulnerable children

and the methods in which the NGOs attempted to address these challenges. The study shows how the challenges were multidimensional in nature. The education of these children was adversely affected due to highly vulnerable livelihoods of their parents, the digital divide, and also the gender divide. The paper further provides accounts of the innovative methods employed by NGOs to overcome some of the challenges. Finally, the paper provides suggestions towards developing a more resilient educational system for the vulnerable children.