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It was a day of excitement for lakhs of students in many States as they returned to schools and colleges after more than a year. Schools resumed physical classes, including Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Telangana on Wednesday, as Covid-19 cases seemed to be under control.
But Day 1 saw mixed response, with many parents sending their children to schools even as some remained hesitant for fear of their wards getting infected.
“Why are we asking schools to reopen when every expert is talking about the third wave in October where children are the most vulnerable and at risk,” tweeted S Rajan, Communicator and Storyteller.
Aditya, a Class IX student in a private school in Chennai, returned home excited meeting his friends after nearly 18 months. But Avyaktha, in Class XI, was not so lucky as her parents chose not to send her to school. “We don’t want to take any risk as children are not vaccinated,” said her father Prasanna.
Ramkey Ananthkrishnan, a wealth advisor, was excited that his son Aniketh was going to the school. Children need face-to-face interactions, and learn better in a three-dimensional environment. “The little evidence we have shows that children are impacted less by the virus and also don’t transmit the infection as much,” he said.
It was a muted response in neighbouring Telangana. “About 20 students (out of 130) turned up. We have almost no students in Classes I and II as the admission process took a beating the last two academic years,” Narayan Rao (name changed), a primary teacher in a government school in Hyderabad, told BusinessLine . This was the case with most schools.
Muted response
On Tuesday, the Telangana High Court directed the State not to force students to come to school and left it to private schools to conduct classes offline or online or adopt a hybrid model.
“I have been waiting to go to school for long and today I am happy to finally go to my school and meet my classmates after so many months,” said a Class XI student in Delhi. Delhi’s Education Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted that children attending classes despite the rain, shows they really missed school.
Gujarat is reopening schools for Classes VI to VIII tomorrow and parents are apprehensive about the safety of their children.
Nervous in Gujarat
Vadodara’s Sanjay Patel is “extremely nervous” to send his daughter to school. Unlike elders, children are not vaccinated, and are vulnerable, he pointed out.
Vishal Buch, a bank employee in Ahmedabad, said parents are being compelled to discontinue online teaching and join physical classes. “We would have no option but to send the kid to the school. We would prefer to continue online classes till our kids are fully vaccinated,” he said.
Students joining classrooms — with 50 per cent capacity — need to submit a consent letter from their parents. Classroom teaching for Classes IX to XII has already resumed partially.
(with inputs from KV Kurmanath in Hyderabad; Rutam V Vora in Ahmedabad and Garima Singh in Delhi)
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