SHILLONG, Feb 10: Education Minister, Lahkmen Rymbui on Thursday justified the government’s decision to reopen schools saying that students cannot be kept in their homes any longer.
Highlighting the sufferings of the students, Rymbui said, “Schools will be allowed to open from Class 1-5 from Monday because we have to understand that loss of economy and livelihood is temporary but loss of a student’s intellectual mind is a big loss.”
“We cannot just keep our children at home; they should go to school,” the minister said, making it abundantly clear that the consent of the parents is must for students to attend regular classes.
Admitting that students have faced tremendous hardship in the last two years, Rymbui said, “We have seen that many of the states and countries have opened up. Having said that, we must take adequate precaution and care.”
The Meghalaya government had earlier decided to resume normal classes from Class VI-XII throughout the state subject to the consent of the parents.
After a COVID review meeting on Wednesday, the government had also decided that schools will be fully functional from Class 1-5, especially in Shillong.
In a notification issued by the department for the district administration to consider, the stress was on ensuring the COVID-19 protocols are followed strictly and attendance norms be kept flexible.
The teaching hours have been reduced to 3-4 hours per day and alternate day’s routine has been recommended and no cultural gathering and sports event have been permitted.
Schools hail govt decision
The state government’s decision to reopen schools for classes 1-5 from February 14 has been received well by the educational institutes.
They felt this was needed as the children have suffered tremendously during the past two years in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fr. Richard Majaw, who is the Secretary of Shillong Archdiocesan Education Society, told The Shillong Times on Thursday that it is good that the children will be able to attend schools again.
“We feel there is a need to resume the offline classes for the benefit of students. At the same time however, we are afraid (vis-à-vis Covid-19) since the students are very young,” Fr. Majaw said.
He disclosed that the managing committees of all the schools under the Shillong Archdiocese will meet to take steps on reopening. He said the staff, teachers and managing committees will decide how they should go about it.
Principal of Loreto Convent, Sr. Mercia D’Souza insisted on the reopening of schools for all classes.
“The children are suffering too much. Not just academics, the values and overall development of the children are also affected,” Sister Mercia said.
She, however, said the Loreto Convent will continue with offline classes for another week.
Stating that the children from classes 6-8 are attending offline classes on alternate days, she said the school is holding offline classes every day only for the class 9 students.
According to her, the students from classes 10-12 will continue with their online examinations till February 18.
Sr. Delphine Fernandes, who is the principal of Holy Child Higher Secondary School, said the parents are asking when the school will resume the offline classes as they have not been able to control their children.
“We have told the parents that we will start the offline classes for the small ones. But we are not going to compel them,” she said, adding, “The students have really suffered in the past two years as the online classes have not served the purpose.”
Sr. Fernandes said a huge difference in performance of the children was witnessed in the offline and online examinations.
“We have seen students securing 70-80% marks in the online examination but many of them could not even score pass marks in the offline examination. We had to conduct a retest to be able to promote them,” she said.
Stating that the school is conducting online examinations for classes 6-12, she said the offline classes will be resumed for the students of classes 6-11 from March 1. The offline classes for classes 1-5 will be resumed from February 14, she added.
Laitumkhrah Presbyterian Higher Secondary School principal, GM Nongkhlaw welcomed the government’s decision.
“Currently, we are having the pre-board examination for classes 10 and 12. The board examination for class 11 is also going to start,” she said.
She added that the school will not be able to resume the offline classes immediately, stating that it will wait for the official order from the Education department.