Karnataka schools’ reopening: Managements say parents unwilling to send kids

BENGALURU: While the state government has allowed schools to reopen for on-campus classes for grades 9-12 from Monday, a section of managements said most parents are unwilling to send their children to school. These schools, mostly accredited to CBSE and ICSE, say parents are happy to continue with the present system of online classes.
School managements say parents fear their children could contract Covid-19, especially with experts suggesting a third wave of infections is imminent. They also cite lack of vaccination among family members. Schools also say managing both online and regular classes are a very difficult proposition.
“Parents are unwilling to send their children,” said M Srinivasan, founder, GEAR Innovative International. “They want all other parents involved and staff of the school to be vaccinated. They may change their mind once all adults concerned are vaccinated. In many schools, teachers’ families are not vaccinated. In our school we have ensured families of staff are also inoculated. We need to observe the mood of parents closely. In our school, only around 11% of students are willing to attend classes.”
Srinivasan, who is also president of the Management of Independent CBSE Association, said schools are not in favour of a partial opening as the “situation is tight” in CBSE and ICSE schools.
“We cannot manage both online and regular classes simultaneously. We will write to the government,” he said. “They must fully vaccinate teachers, their families and parents and then announce full reopening. Parents of central board schools are quite pleased with the current online programme.”
Deep fear
Many principals say there are few takers for physical classes although half-yearly exams for classes 10 and 12 are due by the end of the year.
“A Google form was sent to parents of senior students to help us understand what percentage of them will consent to sending their wards to school,” said Vani Trilok, principal, Mitra Academy. “While children are enjoying outings with their parents, about 40% of parents appear to have a deep fear when it comes to allowing them to attend on-campus classes. However, we need to wait and watch how this situation unfolds.”
Online classes successful
A principal of a school in Gottigere said when they sent out consent forms, not even 1% of students were willing to come to campus. “From the parents’ point of view, it is understandable,” the principal said. “And online classes are successfully running. Last year, everything was new and online classes were more of a trial and error. This year, it has been very smooth. It is very difficult to expect teachers to run both online and on-campus classes. The government should take an overall response and decide on one format.”
Delhi Public School East said the percentage of students who have agreed to come to school varies from 12% to 20% in classes 9-12. “We are anyway running both online and regular classes. We have to combine all sections as only 4-5 students of each section have given consent to come to class. We hope to conduct practicals for them. Parallelly we have to conduct classes online for others,” said Manila Carvalho, principal.