Nagpur:
School attendance figures are now within touching distance of 16 lakh mark, in less than 40 days of reopening. Even education officials have been taken aback by the steep rise in attendance figures every week, evidence that more and more parents are feeling safe sending their children to school.
The 425% jump in attendance since reopening on November 23 without corresponding jump in Covid cases also proves the schools’ ability to safely conduct physical classes. Currently in Maharashtra only Std IX-XII have been allowed to reopen for physical classes.
Chintaman Vanjari, district education officer, said, “Schools are taking all precautions and there is an increase in awareness about personal hygiene as well. Students are also particular about washing their hands and wearing masks properly. All these things add up to a secure environment and that’s what parents are also convinced about.”
Almost 88% of the eligible (Std 9-12) schools in Maharashtra have reopened and this number is expected to nudge upwards.
An education official from the department’s Pune headquarters told TOI the attendance figures took them by surprise too. The official said, “Resistance to reopening was mostly by grant-in-aid schools because for many oftheir teachers/principals, it was an extended vacation with a guaranteed salary that can be as high as Rs 1.25 lakh per month. So coming back to work, combined with some fear of the virus, was obviously not ideal from their point of view. There were concerns on how their resistance will affect psychology of parents who were fence sitting on consent.”
But within 10 days of reopening, such concerns vanished. Another official from Nagpur division’s deputy director of education office said, “There was lot of pressure from teachers’ associations to delay reopening. Fortunately the government stood its ground because students could not be deprived of education. Students from poor economic background need to be back in class if they are to compete academically. After 10 days when we looked at attendance figures across the state, it was clear they are going to shoot up.”
Attendance across state:
November 23: 2,99,193
December 2: 4,91,962
December 11: 6,04,884
December 14: 10,72,490
January 4: 15,70,807
28% of total eligible students are back on campus
88% of total eligible schools have opened