E-Paper
Odisha puts off resuming physical classes for primary students amid Covid surge
Omicron: Over 20,000 primary schools in Odisha were scheduled to reopen for physical classes on January 3, followed by another 3,093 schools on January 10.
Bhubaneswar: Odisha on Sunday put on hold its decision to resume in-persn classes for primary school students from January 3, Monday, in view of a sharp increase of Covid-19 cases over the past few days, the state government announced as the state reported 424 new Covid cases, its highest in 2 months. Odisha last reported 400 cases on October 30 when 488 new cases were detected on a single day. The state has so far detected 14 cases of infection by Omicron variant of Covid.
Over 20,000 primary schools were scheduled to reopen for physical classes on January 3, followed by another 3,093 schools on January 10, according to the schedule announced by the government.
“As a lot of parents and guardians expressed their reservations and owing to the rise in Covid-19 cases, the state government has decided to postpone the reopening of primary schools,” said school and mass education minister Sameer Ranjan Dash.
Officials said many schools that opened the schools for classes 6-10 are finding it difficult to maintain social distancing norms in classrooms due to lack of space, forcing teachers to make them sit close to each other.
School and mass education department officials however said the physical mode of teaching for classes 6 to 10 students will continue as per the previous schedule. Similarly, the summative assessment examination for class 10 students will be conducted as per schedule by the Board of Secondary Education between January 5 and 8.
After the second wave of Covid infections started in April, physical classes across Odisha were suspended. physical classes resumed for classes 10 and 12 students in July while the same for class 9 students resumed on August 16. Classroom teaching for class 8 and 11 began on October 25. Students of classes 6 and 7 returned to classrooms from November 15.
Dash said the decision to postpone the reopening of primary schools has been taken following consultations with stakeholders, health experts and the feedback from parents.
The Odisha Board of Secondary Education has already reduced the syallabus of Class 9 and 10 by more than 33% after the disruption in the academic calendar. It also unveiled a scheme of assessment for the session 2021-22 for classes 9 and 10 students under which internal assessments will be done by the class/ subject teachers periodically in continuous manner in the form of formative assessments.
Formative assessments for class 10 students were conducted in the first week of September and November while two more formative assessments are likely to be conducted in January and March. The same format would be adopted for class 9 students.
