Let us open offices to conduct online coaching classes: Owners in Mumbai

Coaching class owners in the city have urged the state government to relax some lockdown rules so they can smoothly conduct their classes in the online mode

Coaching class owners in the city have urged the state government to relax some lockdown rules so they can smoothly conduct their classes in the online mode.

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In a letter sent to the government on Tuesday, the Maharashtra Class Owners Association (MCOA) has demanded that the government allow class owners to open their offices and premises at least for teachers and staff members for now. “Till now we were allowed to keep our office open and run online lectures from our classes as we have a better internet facility and arrangements at our premises. Now, we are not allowed to open our class premises. We are not even able to conduct our online sessions properly and meet parents for proper counselling. The second lockdown has closed all our options of survival and has broken our backbone,” states the letter sent by MCOA.

The association has also requested the government to allow offline classes once the process of reopening resumes yet again in the state. Since many students are not comfortable with online lectures, they don’t join coaching classes which has reduced our revenue by 60-70 % over the past one year. We request the government to allow us for offline lectures from our classes and restart our industry after unlocking this lockdown with proper SOP and guidelines so that we can consolidate and revive soon,” said Santosh Vaskar, president of MCOA. All non-essential shops and establishments in the city have been shut since April 5 as per the orders of the state government and the BMC.

Coaching classes in several parts of the state such as Mumbai and Pune remain closed since March last year. MCOA and several other coaching class organisations had earlier requested the government to allow them to reopen for offline classes with proper standard operating procedures (SOPs) in place.