PUNE: After a long pandemic-driven phase of e-classes, schools in the city are awaiting guidelines from Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) for reopening as per the government notification from October 4.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation has already issued reopening guidelines for schools in its jurisdiction. In Pune, school representatives said although they are ready with all necessary precautions, it would help if the civic body issued guidelines in time to make extra arrangements if required.
Schools also said the majority of parents have given consent to send their children to school, but it remains to be seen how many eventually show up. Jan Shikshan Pratishthan school management representative Vinayak Deshpande said, “We have told all our students’ parents to be ready for the reopening. All our staff has also been asked to come to school and start preparing. But, the gates will only be thrown open after PMC’s final order.”
MS Golwalkar School principal Leena Talathi said, “We are trying to reopen on October 4, following all Covid-19 guidelines given by the government. Depending on what orders PMC issues, we are also considering offline exams amid distancing, temperature checks, screening, face masks, and more.”
Similarly, Vidya Pratishthan principal Chandrika Banerjee said, “We are thinking of reopening classes VIII to X. We would prefer to have an offline terminal examination in the school. For this, we have formed a task force and almost all our staff members are vaccinated. We will follow all necessary steps required and look forward to seeing the children back here.”
Others are also looking into a limited reopening. “We are planning to start offline schooling for classes VIII and IX in November; mid-term exams for class IX will be offline from October 16,” said Novel International School principal Manasi Hasabnis.
In Mumbai, schools and junior colleges have been directed to call Parent-Teacher Associa tion (PTA) meetings and get in touch with and register at local health centres before re opening schools on Monday.
The BMC’s education de partment on Thursday held meetings with educational institutions to take stock of their preparedness to welco me students on October 4.
The BMC on Wednesday gave the nod to reopen classes from Stds VII to XII. Schools and colleges will have to follow the SOP .The civic education department has clarified that if teachers are not fully vaccinated, they can be allowed for physical teaching, provided they have do ne a negative RT-PCR test 48 hours prior to being in scho ols and colleges. Only teachers teaching classesVIII to XII have to be called for physical classes. The remaining will continue to take on line classes, the department said.
