With reactions pouring in from various sections after 51 teaching and non-teaching staff of government-run schools testing positive for COVID-19, Collector V. Vinay Chand said that the decision to send children to schools would be at the sole discretion of parents.
Speaking to The Hindu, he clarified that there is no mandate from the government, and sending children to schools is not mandatory. “Just like all sectors are slowly opening up, schools also have been opened. But sending children to schools is not compulsory, they can continue with the online classes. Parents are at liberty to send their children or not,” he said.
Schools have opened up for Classes IX, X and Intermediate (Plus II) from November 2, and there is a proposal to start classes for VI, VII and VIII in the last week of November and primary classes from mid-December.
The Collector said that all precautions are being taken at the schools, including sanitisation of the premises, providing foot-sanitisers at the entrance, providing masks to students, running the schools for only half-a-day, maintaining social distancing by conducting classes on alternate days, batch-wise and conducting random tests.
In the district, close to 4,000 government-run schools have reopened and there are over 6,000 teachers and a few thousand non-teaching staff.
Till Wednesday evening, around 4,800 teachers were tested and 51 were found to be positive for COVID-19.
“We will continue with the testing and all teaching and non-teaching staff will be tested in the next couple of days,” said Mr. Vinay Chand.
Private schools yet to open
Meanwhile, private schools are yet to open and are in a state of dilemma. “Parents are not keen on sending their children and we are worried about the safety of our teachers, staff and students. We will wait and watch the scenario for some more time and then take a call. Once we feel that the situation has stabilised and the threat from the virus has reduced, we shall take a call,” said Vasu Prakash of Sri Prakash Educational Institutions.
In the district, there are around 2,000 private schools and most of them are still closed and are continuing with online classes.
