The Covid-19 pandemic has kept India’s 250 million children of school-going age out of school for over 18 months. India’s digital divide has meant many have not been able to access online learning, and are thus effectively shut out of learning. Now, calls to reopen schools are growing as India emerges out of the second Covid wave. What should be the plan in case of future Covid-19 outbreaks? How can the digital and gender divides in education, deepened by the pandemic, be addressed from a policy perspective? To discuss all this, we spoke with Rukmini Banerji, CEO of the Pratham education foundation and Poonam Muttreja, executive director of the Population Foundation of India.