At a time when schools across the state are all set to welcome students back on campus after nearly 19 months of online classes, city colleges too are starting preparations for a similar move in the near future. They have started to draw up lists of fully vaccinated staff and students, assessing total classrooms available and sanitisation schedule to avoid last-minute decisions
“The state announced reopening of schools last week and ordered all schools to implement the move within a week. We don’t want to be caught unawares, so want to ensure all necessary work is done in advance,” said the vice-principal of a management institute in suburban Mumbai.
Last week, state minister for school education Varsha Gaikwad announced that after a 19-month break, schools in the state will reopen starting October 4. In a series of tweets, Gaikwad mentioned that in rural areas, physical classes for Class 5 to 12 will resume, while in urban areas, physical classes for class 8 to 12 will resume. The schools will be reopened in phased manner, she added.
While this was not the first time that schools in the state were asked to work towards re-opening physical classes in a phased manner, this has been the first time that the local municipal body has approved the move.
In August, Gaikwad announced that offline classes will restart for Classes 5 to 8 in rural areas and Classes 8 to 12 in urban cities, following Covid-19 protocols starting August 17. This decision was not approved by the BMC. Similarly in November last year, the school education department had released a similar circular announcing re-opening of schools for classes 9 to 12 in a phased manner.
By January 2021, another circular was released directing students from classes 5 to 8 be brought back to school in groups and maintain Covid-appropriate behaviour on campus. Both these circulars, however, were revoked once Covid cases started to rise and the state called for another complete lockdown starting mid-April.
“As per the latest decision, we have to start physical classes for students from Class 11 and 12 and since we are still unsure of how this will work out, we’ve only called Class 12 students as a pilot and then assess the situation. For degree college students, we have already started drawing up lists of vaccinated people, because government officials have hinted at physical classes for all students post Diwali holidays,” said Marie Fernandes, principal of St Andrew’s College, Bandra.
Some colleges have also suggested holding a vaccination camp on their premises to ensure staff, both teaching and non-teaching, as well as their respective families are vaccinated soon.
“We started calling our staff back to college since August last year on a rotational basis and that has worked for us. We’ve been encouraging staff to get vaccinated and at present all our teachers are fully vaccinated. Preps to restart physical classes for degree students has been on but we won’t take any step before the government orders the same,” said Anju Kapoor, principal, UPG College, Vile Parle.
Surjitt Sahani
