Besides closure of numerous units producing goods, undoing of earnings for a large number of people leading to massive unemployment, the biggest challenge the pandemic has posed is the restructuring of schools for 'safe' environment for school children especially the kids - the beginners.

School is not only a place for learning but also for sharing time playing with friends enjoying small joys. Schools are essentially social set ups where children learn and value togetherness. Noisy classrooms, hustle and bustle in the recess breaks to the whirling extra-curricular activities, schools have been synonymous with a cacophony of student-teacher activity. The pandemic has brought all this to a screeching halt, as schools were forced to shut down. How children separated from their schools for months will adjust to the new normal? Equally challenging will be the task for school administrators to manage day to day life.

One thing is sure that the post pandemic era will be drastically different for everyone, nay, the schools.

The most serious concern is making environment safe for the kids on the threshold of formal education – the Nursery and the KG children for whom measures like face mask and sanitisation will have no meaning. The alternative may be home learning. But then are our homes equipped for this? All the parents may not be good enough to teach their kids at home.

Under the given circumstances, virtual learning cannot go on. Children have already started feeling the need to 'go out' and attend schools and resume their normal life. Interaction with peers and teachers has been the mainspring of school education which stands badly jolted.

More than two decades ago, in 1998, The Age magazine, based in Melbourne Australia, published an article about what schools might look like in the future.   “Next century, schools as we know them will no longer exist.   In their place will be community-style centres operating seven days a week, 24 hours a day.   Computers will become an essential ingredient in the recipe for an effective school of the future.”

Students, The Age asserted, will see and hear teachers on computers, with “remote learning” the trend of the day. Accessing “classrooms” on their home computers, students will learn at times most convenient for them. Yet some attendance at an actual school will be required to help students develop appropriate social skills.

A coordinated thinking & working by the educationists, think-tank, policy makers, schools administrators from across the world have to sit down and work out ways and means to delve on a new normal, find ways and means which not only save our future generations from the 'future pandemics' but also provide them a safe and intellectual environment for healthy learning. As of today, we have no answer to our child’s question - “when am I going to my school again?”