Noida: How will teachers be vaccinated? How will they maintain social distancing in school buses and classrooms? Days before schools in the city are set to open for students of classes 6 to 8, most parents have expressed reservations about sending their children out of home.
The Uttar Pradesh government has asked schools to call back students to classrooms, but has also specified that they should take the consent of parents first. Students of classes 9 to 12 have already been attending offline classes since October last year.
Following the recent order, schools in Noida and Ghaziabad have been conducting a survey of parents on WhatsApp groups, asking them if they are willing to send their children to campuses.
The schools now are flooded with queries from parents, most of whom have expressed apprehension in sending the kids out. “Parents are posing many questions, such as ‘are teachers going to be vaccinated? Will the bus drivers be vaccinated? ‘How will social distancing be maintained in classes or buses?’ It is easier for senior students to follow safety protocols, but not children. Also, we are giving term breaks to students at this time and some of them will have examinations that have already been planned online. Usually, the new sessions start by the end of March. Ideally, we should have waited until then,” said Renu Singh, principal, Amity International School.
Shivani Jain, president of the All School Parents’ Association, said schools would have to ensure they follow the standard operating procedures released by the state government in September 2020. “The state government has announced the reopening of schools based on two key points — take consent from parents and not force children to go to school, and continue online classes for students who can’t attend offline classes. There was no need to rush the reopening of junior classes. But we fear that schools have created this additional pressure so that they can extract full fees from parents who have been paying partial fees for the online curriculum,” Jain said.
The district education department said they had no option but to pass on the government order. “The government’s order has arrived and we passed it on for schools to implement. We have no role beyond that,” said the district inspector of schools, Ravi Datt.
Meanwhile. parents claimed that an internal survey had revealed that at least 90% of them were reluctant to send their kids to school. “We conducted a survey and nine out of 10 parents in each school have objected to the decision,” said Yatendra Kasana, president, All Noida School Parents’ Association.