Government schools in city resume regular classroom sessions

Government schools in the city opened for regular classes on Monday four days after the state government issued an official notification for their resumption. While

Government schools in the city opened for regular classes on Monday four days after the state government issued an official notification for their resumption. While schools had already initiated regular sessions from October 15, no official notification had been issued. As a result, schools were continuing with the schedules that they had individually adopted for the guidance sessions.

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Across the district, 7,078 students from classes 9 to 12 turned up for the sessions out of a total strength of 40,273. The highest attendance was recorded in class 10, with 2,260 students across the district visiting their respective schools out of a total strength of 9,694.

District education officer Indu Boken said that the numbers were expected to increase in the coming days. “Today is only the first day of the regular classroom sessions. We expect the student strength to increase subsequently in the coming days,” said Boken.

Unlike the classes that have been taking place since September 21, sessions on Monday were structured and divided into periods of fixed durations for different subjects. Further, the roster system being followed so far was disbanded. Teachers were required to report full time for work from Monday. Suman Sharma, principal of Government Model Senior Secondary School in Sector 4/7, said that different subjects were taught for 30 minutes each on Monday. “Around 300 students came for regular classes today. In order to observe physical distancing norms, a limited number of 15 students were seated in one classroom and one subject was taught for 30 minutes. Earlier, students could leave after clarifying the doubts,” said Sharma.

She said that the turnout was the highest since the beginning of the academic guidance sessions since September 21. Teachers of classes 6 to 8 were also roped in by the school for teaching the senior students. “With students occupying multiple classes, we had to involve more teachers. We, therefore, asked teachers of classes 6 to 8 to take sessions,” said Sharma.

A few of the city schools, however, saw a lukewarm response on Monday. School heads and teachers said that they were expecting the turnout to improve after Diwali. “Around 15 students came to school today. We expect the numbers to increase post-Diwali since many students are yet to return back to the city and might do so after the festival session,” said Arun Kumar Raghav, vice-principal, Government Senior Secondary School in Islampur.

Kumar said that although classes had been taking place for over a month now, we are now conducting regular lessons for board classes. “While too many students are not visiting the school ever day, our sessions for classes 10 and 12 are going well since we are able to give individual attention to students. We will be able to complete the syllabus in time if students continue to visit regularly,” said Kumar.

Most private schools in the city are continuing with online classes with parents refusing to send their children to school for physical classroom sessions. Successive feedback sought from parents by private schools have shown that parents were in favour of continuing with online classes.