In Delhi’s severe air, classrooms struggle to cope with hybrid mode of learning

Hybrid-mode challenges

Hybrid learning is “only partially successful because there are no clear guidelines”, a senior government school teacher in Dwarka said.

“The lesson plans are different for online and offline. It is unclear whether there have to be extra classes on Google Classroom, or both should be held parallely. But if you write on the board, how will children online read it?” she asked.

Parents with children in Sardar Patel Vidyalaya (SPV) said they had been informed that hybrid mode would apply from nursery to Class 5, while older children would continue with regular school.

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But the school cautioned that in hybrid mode, “teachers may have limited attention for online students”, and encouraged offline attendance, because “classroom learning and interaction with peers are far more enriching and effective”.

Bharat Arora, president of the Action Committee of Unaided Private Schools and managing director of the Mount Abu group of schools, told The Indian Express earlier this month that “at least 70% of private schools have transitioned to hybrid mode”.

Vasant Valley School has a standard operating procedure (SOP) based on specific AQI thresholds. When AQI is between 200 and 350, all outdoor activity and physical education lessons stop. When AQI is between 350 and 400, hybrid lessons are offered in junior school. Under GRAP 4 (AQI above 400), the school moves to hybrid mode for all classes.

Children, the sufferers

Children are clearly suffering in the polluted air, teachers said. Kids under the age of 10 are the worst hit, the government school teacher in Dwarka said. “Fourteen of my students were absent today; it’s no more than four or five usually,” she told The Indian Express last week.

Aparajita Gautam, president of the Delhi Parents’ Association, said children who were sensitive, with weakened immunity and asthma, were the most vulnerable. Arora said “setting up air purifiers in classrooms has become a necessity now, just like air-conditioners in summer.”

In its circular, SPV claimed air quality inside the school was “significantly better than in most parts of the city” because the campus was “very green”, there were air-purifying plants in the classrooms and corridors, and the school’s air purifiers were “fully functional and highly effective”. It said its own AQI readings on November 11 were “59, 57 and 37 across all floors”.

Arora said his school in Rohini was using pollutant absorbents developed by IIT-Delhi, which had improved the air significantly.

Outdoor activities

Earlier this month, a parent in Noida complained that his three-year-old daughter’s school had insisted on holding Children’s Day activities outdoors. “AQI was 870 on my machine,” he said. “The school told me it was only for an hour… Other parents did not object. But my daughter was coughing and sneezing,” he said.

Leher Sethi, the mother of a 10-year-old boy in South Delhi, said her son’s school had continued with sports activities outdoors amid heavy air pollution. “A lot of us reached out to the principal, but they still went ahead with a cross-country race,” Sethi said.

She alleged the school had told the parents that their children could stay away if they wanted. “But that is not fair to the children,” Sethi said.

At Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, all outdoor activities, sports and assemblies have been suspended. Parents have been told that sprinklers had been installed “to help settle dust and pollutants”, and students have been advised to wear masks.

At Amity International School, Pushp Vihar, Principal Ameeta Mohan said her school had restricted outdoor activities and sports for older students, though they “remain active through indoor options such as chess, table tennis, and other safe, skill-building games”. “We view this phase not as a setback but as an opportunity to model resilience and adaptability,” she said.

Frustration for parents

Parents are distressed and frustrated. Sethi, the mother of the 10-year-old, said it had broken her heart to see her child wear a mask at the age of two in 2018. “This is the city where we have to teach them to wear masks,” she said.

Sethi flagged the fundamental inequality in society which resulted in some children suffering more than others. “We have purifiers in the school because parents have funded it. It is the underprivileged who suffer the most,” she said.

Bhavreen Kandhari, a mother of twin daughters and co-founder of the environmental collective Warrior Moms, said, “These are very reactive measures. The thinking that the problem is only in these three months is wrong. A lot of mothers feel that there needs to be a year-round solution. Stakeholders need to be consulted… What can working mothers do when classes are online and children are at home?

To be clear, the impact of air pollution on schools is not new. Since 2016, schools have been forced to shut around the first week of November. In 2021, primary classes were stopped from December 2 onward. Similar closures were announced in 2022 and 2023 as well. Last year, schools transitioned for the first time to a hybrid mode of learning on November 25, before resuming in-person classes on December 5.

The question parents and teachers are asking: what is the solution to this old problem?