“Please do not send your children to school if they are feeling sick. If your child has a fever of over 98.6F, keep your child under your care at home until he/she is fever-free for 48 hours without the aid of any medication,” reads the message from a school in the city. Another school sent out a message: “Please send your child to school with protective surgical face mask / preferably N 95 mask.”
As the news about sanitisation operation of a building in the IT corridor spread, school authorities have begun to react with caution to deal with the crisis/panic. Just as schools in Hong Kong and S. Korea have done, some schools are preparing for the worst case scenario. “In case of any emergency shutdown, we will use technology to continue the schooling remotely from home and year-end assessments also will be taken care of,” said the email from a school in Bandlaguda.
Incidentally, while exams for Class X, XI and XII are in various stages of completion, the final exams for students of middle school and high school are yet to begin. Among the steps taken by schools included cancellation of academic year-end excursions.
According to State Education Department officials, precautionary measures and awareness sessions were conducted during assembly time in all the schools within 3 km radius of Mahendra Hills on Tuesday. Among the first identified case of COVID-19 is a resident of Mahendra Hills. According to reports, the Human Resources Development Ministry has asked Chief Secretaries of all States, and the Central Board of Secondary Education to spread awareness among students on basic protective measures against COVID-19. The CBSE has allowed students of classes X and XII to wear masks while writing exams and also bring sanitisers.
As availability of protective masks and hand sanitisers in the city became patchy, a rights activist demanded that they be distributed free to school children pursuing education in government schools. “The government should distribute safety masks freely to the government school children as they may not be able to afford them. The government should distribute it freely in all the government schools along with soap free of cost on warfooting,” said Achuta Rao, an activist.