INDORE: As the students of primary classes had been home for almost 18 months, private state board schools across the district witnessed less than four per cent attendance on the first day.
Although, as per the Private State board school owners association around 10 per cent students were present, the data of school education department says otherwise.
“The schools are permitted to reopen with 50 per cent capacity for primary classes and on day one the private state board schools had around 10 per cent attendance,” vice president of Private State board school owners association, Gopal Soni told TOI. “Schools are not permitting students without a consent letter. We have planned to call primary school students only for two hours that too for the main subjects,” he added.
However, as per the school education department of Indore district, government schools of Indore witnessed around 23 per cent attendance on day one whereas the private schools had less than four per cent attendance.
Out of 2093 private schools, as many as 1925 reopened in conventional mode.
Of 419792 enrolled students in classes one to five, 15702 attended school.
District project coordinator of Indore’s school education department, Akshay Rathore said that out of the 55994 students of class one to five enrolled at 1106 government schools of Indore as many as 13000 had come on first day. While the conventional mode of classes for primary school students commenced across the state from Monday, owing to a local holiday, in Indore district classes started from Tuesday onwards.
Parents seemed extremely apprehensive and majority of them preferred dropping their wards to the school. Most of them also ensured giving last minute instructions related to mask and distancing. Students were specifically reminded not to remove the mask or exchange it with friends.
On the other hand, students had mixed reactions, while some students seemed elated to be back to school as they could meet their friends others were teary-eyed.
