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It’s back to school for students of classes 6-8
Shashi Kumar, the general secretary of the Associated Management of Private Schools in Karnataka on Monday said that attendance in the private schools in the state was around 55%. He, however, added that most private schools are continuing with online classes due to safety concerns.
Schools in Karnataka reopened for students of classes 6 to 8 on Monday in areas where the Covid-19 positivity rate is below 2%. Karnataka primary and secondary education minister BC Nagesh said that the government decided to reopen schools after approval from the state’s Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) on Covid-19. “We are thinking about reopening schools for primary classes,” Nagesh told reporters.
Shashi Kumar, the general secretary of the Associated Management of Private Schools in Karnataka on Monday said that attendance in the private schools in the state was around 55%. He, however, added that most private schools are continuing with online classes due to safety concerns. “Compared with classes 9 and 10, the attendance is low. We hope these numbers will increase,” Shashi Kumar said.
The state government is yet to release the data on first-day attendance.
Talking to reporters on Monday, Nagesh said that the government will take a decision on reopening schools for students of classes 1 to 5 after consulting the technical advisory committee. He, however, did not specify any timeline. The government has already allowed the reopening of schools for students from classes 9 to 12 since August 23.
Nagesh said many parents and students urged him to reopen schools as he visited several parts of the state. He said the government and district administrations have been working together with the department for the safe conduct of classes.
“The department had an intention of reopening schools for some time now and teachers were also ready for it; but keeping in mind the health of the students along with education and concerns of the parents, we discussed with the technical advisory committee and after taking the opinion of expert pediatricians, we are reopening schools for classes 6,7 and 8,” he told reporters.
There are over 3.1 million students in these three classes across around 38,000 schools in the state, according to official data.
It is mandatory for students to submit a consent letter from their parents to attend offline classes and these classes are not compulsory, as there is a provision of online classes also. The government has said that offline classes for students of classes 6 to 8 will be held on alternate days, each with 50 per cent attendance. They will be held on five days a week and school authorities will sanitize and put in other Covid control measures over the weekend.
A technical advisory committee (TAC) on the third wave, headed by noted cardiologist, Dr Devi Shetty, had submitted its report to the Basavaraj Bommai government on June 22. It had strongly recommended that schools and physical classes be resumed at the earliest.
“Any further delay in school reopening may push children into malnutrition, child labour, child marriage, child trafficking, begging etc., making their condition further worse,” according to the report.
According to the TAC, there are 23,838,995 people below the age of 18 in the state with an estimated population of 70,259,592, accounting for around 34%.
There are 24,391 schools that have grades between 1 and 5 which have over 5.4 million students and around 162,000 lakh teachers, data shows.
