BHOPAL: With the reopening of offline classes, complaints about schools pressuring students and parents to attend offline classes and exams have started pouring in. While the guidelines state that consent of parents is mandatory for children to attend physical classes, it is no more adhered to by the schools.
While announcing opening of primary class from 1 from September 20, the state government has made consent of parents a must. Most parents have made it clear that with not vaccinations for children under 18 years of age, they won’t send their kids and take a risk.
“I have received a message from school that my son has to attend offline exams. I met the school management and told them that they can take full year fee, but I will not send my son to attend offline exams,” said Ajeet Dubey, father of a class 6 student.
Parents also alleged that schools are not following the Covid instructions. “Parent’s consent is a mockery as no school is following it. Schools should not pressure students to attend offline classes if they are not willing,” said another parent Shekhar Singh.
However, schools said that they have put any pressure on the students or parents. “We have only contacted parents to convince them for sending their kids. It is upto them to take a final decision about it,” said a school owner wishing anonymity. The state government, not considering the poor attendance — barely 20% in classes 6 to 12 — went ahead with the decision to reopen schools from primary classes with 50% strength.
Decision to open primary classes in schools from September 20 was taken in a meeting chaired by the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It has been made clear that district administration said that concurrence of district crisis management group would also be taken for opening of primary classes and residential schools.
A spokesperson for the district administration told TOI that the state government has allowed opening of primary classes, residential schools and hostels and if crisis management group in some districts feel that situation is not conducive in their district to do it, they may decide otherwise. “If there are more cases of Corona at some place and the district crisis management group decides not to open the primary classes, residential schools and hostels for this reason, they can take a decision accordingly,” he said.
