THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In the wake of the government decision to restart offline education for classes X, XI and XII on Monday, the general education department has decided to reinstate regular school hours. Accordingly, classes would be held from morning to evening. Following the Covid surge, the department had been restricting the classes till noon.
“School authorities have been given instructions on arranging classes in batches and adhering to the school-level guidelines already in place. Classes for Class I to IX would continue in online mode for another week,” director of general education Jeevan Babu said on Saturday.
Meanwhile, general education minister V Sivankutty said the regular classes are planned since the final examinations were fast approaching. Offline classes for degree and postgraduate degree courses will also begin on February 7.
Though offline classes had restarted, the department had to suspend the regular classes for students from Class Ito IX since January 21. They are now carrying out their studies using the digital classes broadcast on KITE Victers television channel and online platform. The government is yet to decide whether regular class hours should be revived for lower classes as well from February14.
New guidelines for
international travellers
The state government has issued new guidelines for those coming to the state from different countries.
As per the new guidelines, only symptomatic people will be tested at the airport. Home quarantine is advisable for international travellers. They must continue self-health monitoring for seven days from the arrival date, and if symptoms develop, they shall undergo testing.
The samples of all international travellers who have tested positive from RT-PCR test shall be sent for whole genomic sequencing. The Covid-19 testing using rapid antigen test on the eighth day of arrival is advisable for the safety of the passenger.
However, irrespective of the country, random testing of 2% of international travellers will be conducted at the airports free of cost. The new guidelines have been issued based on the decision taken at the Covid review meeting on Friday. The Covid expert committee had given this recommendation to the government, which was taken up at the review meeting.
