covid-19 pandemic. Seven months later, the school in Atarra town of Uttar Pradesh remains shut. Online classes are not an option for the rural families who sent their children to the Ambedkar Shikha Niketan in the chronically poor Bundelkhand region.
Since April, all five teachers, including 27-year-old Kushwaha, have been out of job.“I am struggling to run my family now," said Kushwaha, a mother of two, who used to earn ₹6,000 per month from her job and had to pull her daughter out of school.
Her husband, an occasional migrant who used to work in textile units in Gujarat, now labours as a casual farm worker, the only source of income for the family. “Even if the school reopens, families may not send their children to save on expenses," she.