The recent surge of Covid-19 cases, which includes a large number of children from different States catching the infections, has left parents worried. Especially, when the new academic season is about to start and schools are preparing to open post April.

In its latest survey, community social media platform LocalCircle found that majority of the respondents want schools be closed from April-June period. The concerns come on the back of recent reports of infections rising in school or college premises in India and abroad.

For example in Surat city so far over 100 students and teachers caught the infection, while during March alone Bengaluru reported about 500 cases of Covid-19 in the kids under 10.

In the backdrop of the alarming situation of the outbreak, LocalCircles has written to the Education Secretary and Health Secretary underlining the overall sentiments of the concerned parents seeking closure of the schools from April-June 2021.

Based on the survey, which received over 18,000 responses from parents located in 272 districts of India, the community engagement platform found out that “Given the massive surge in the Covid cases experienced in the last 3 weeks, the default option for the schools should be closure from April–June 2021.”

“Exceptions may be taken on the basis of active case numbers in a particular district along with the variant type reported, the daily case curve to authorise District Magistrates to permit schools to operate as long as active cases are less than 100,” it said in its recommendation to the Education Secretary.

Only 25 per cent of the respondent parents were found to be willing to send their children to school in April. While 73 per cent of parents believe physical schools should only be open if there are less than 100 active cases in a district, the survey findings showed.

“Because of what has been reported of the B.1.1.7 strain world over with several European countries including the UK seeing high transmission amongst children and young and the national caseload growing by 6-times in (past) 45 days, it does demand a much more conservative approach to school reopening,” Sachin Taparia, Chairman & CEO, LocalCircles wrote in the letter dated March 30.

The organisation has been collecting responses from parents since April 2020 to gather collective pulse on school reopening and online classes. It was only in January 2021 that for the first time, LocalCircles observed a drastic change in opinion of parents, who had favoured opening up of the schools as the nationwide caseload had started dropping.

But in past 45 days, the infection has spread widely across the country with about 250 districts now having over 100 active cases.

Many European nations have showed data that demonstrates the dangerous nature of the B.1.1.7 strain of Coronavirus and it is proven to be impacting children much more than the previous strain of 2020, it is time to be more cautious than before, Taparia added.

Of the total respondents, 44 per cent parents were located in metros or Tier 1 districts, 28 per cent were located in Tier 2 districts and 28 per cent parents were located in Tier 3, 4 or rural districts. The survey was conducted via LocalCircles platform and all participants were validated citizens who had to be registered with LocalCircles to participate in this survey.

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