Assam schools brace for classes amid grave COVID scene

According to standard operating protocols, only students belonging to Classes 9 to 12 would be allowed with 50 per cent attendance while not more than 20 students would be permitted to physically attend a class at any time.

The education department however has not made it mandatory for students to attend classes but has put the onus on parents to decide whether or not to send their wards to the institutions.

The situation however would be reviewed by the education department after 15 days.

Private schools, on the other hand, have been asked to decide whether or not they would resume classes from Monday.

The Centre, in its guidelines for Unlock 4.0 issued in August, has permitted schools to partially re-open after September 21, 2020.

State education minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma had earlier said that the state government would go “by the wisdom of the central government” in regard to resumption of classes.

Sarma also pointed out the need for resuming classes for higher secondary students for them to be eligible to appear in engineering and medical entrance examinations held at the national level.

The secondary education department had last week issued standard operating procedures to undertake all precautionary measures against COVID-19.

According to the SOP, students attending schools would require to submit a no-objection certificate from parents/guardians. Besides, only 50 per cent teaching and non-teaching staff will be allowed in the school on a given day.

Classes for standards 9 and 12 students would be held on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while the same for grades 10 and 11 students would be held on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Assam minister of state for education, Bhabesh Kalita said that while the sanitisation process has been undertaken on a war footing in schools, it would take some time before those institutions, which have been turned into COVID care, quarantine and isolation centres, resume routine classes.

The minister further said that arrangements for conducting COVID tests in the schools would be in place. Schools are also keeping sanitisers, thermal scanners and pulse oximeters, etc at their disposal.

The district administration will keep constant touch with school authorities for regular monitoring, random testing of teachers and students on a weekly basis.

A class having more than 20 students would be divided into two batches. The first batch will attend school from 9 am to 12 noon, while the second will have their classes between 1 pm and 4 pm.

The outbreak of coronavirus had prompted schools in the state to close down since the latter half of March this year.

Students have since been attending online classes even as the percentage of students covered through the medium has, by the state education minister’s admission, not been up to the desired level.