Edited excerpts: Dr Banerji, where do we Indians stand today in our approach to schools? Is the closure of schools due to the Covid-19 pandemic exposing a larger problem, in that we don't even feel the need for children to go to school, because it's the exams that matter? RB: We have spent a whole year trying out various things. And I think as a country, as families and as individuals, we've been waiting for a kind of golden moment when suddenly [the pandemic] will be over and the schools will open. I think now at every level, we realise that that is not how it is going to happen. There are going to be stages in this whole process. There may be an on and off [of Covid-19 cases] and therefore we need a flexible response to the eventualities we've seen. There is a digital divide, but we had lots of divides before as well. This digital divide has just fallen clearly on the divides that already existed and may have made some of them worse. But we shouldn't forget that, even prior to Covid-19, for many years we had very high enrolment rates and very low levels of learning. So as we look ahead, we shouldn't forget that we had some prior problems which may have gotten worse. I certainly think there should be greater pressure for opening schools because almost everything around us has now opened. Putting schools at the front and centre is really important. And, it worries me that there isn't more public pressure to say that we need a very serious debate on this, and with action coming through.