Students of private schools will enjoy double benefits if their parents are vaccinated: not only will they be safe from the health perspective, they will also stand to gain up to four marks in extracurricular activities.
D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka, said they will allot two marks for each parent if they are vaccinated. “We want students to encourage their parents and other family members to get vaccinated. If students step up pressure on their parents, they will be able to ensure that they are vaccinated. This will also help ensure that all the students in our school will be relatively safe if school reopens as their first circle would be vaccinated,” he said.
In total, the four marks will be assigned to students under their extra curricular activities for various social projects that they need to undertake. Mr. Kumar said that an advisory will be sent to all their 4,000-member schools. Students will have to submit their parents’ vaccination certificates to the school to avail the marks for the 2021-22 academic year.
Sumanth Narayan, founder, Shanthinikethana School, said their school would ensure that students get four ‘green points’ if both their parents are vaccinated. “We will ensure that students who submit their parents’ vaccination certificates get four marks over and above the marks they have scored in their final examination. We decided to add this to the final examination scores as it would give breathing time for parents to complete their vaccination process as some parents maybe delaying the vaccination as they may have got COVID-19 infection recently. Such parents will have to wait for a few months before they get jabbed,” he said. He said that they would give an additional two green marks for students if they are vaccinated once the vaccination drive for children below 18 years is rolled out.
Lottery
In addition to this, many private schools have decided to also have a lottery where all parents who are vaccinated will be given slips once they produce their certificates. The school managements will pick a few parents who will be given prizes if their name is chosen.
Private schools had taken up a similar exercise during the last Assembly elections when students were awarded marks if their parents had exercised their electoral franchise.
Parents feel that it was the right move as it would compel all parents to get vaccinated. Rajesh S., an IT professional said, “This is a great move as students will ensure that they step up pressure on their parents and complete the vaccination process at the earliest. It is also extremely easy to set up a vaccination appointment now, so parents who haven’t been jabbed yet can do so without any hassle.”