Gurugram — Schools across the state will reopen for in-person classroom sessions for students of classes 1 and 2 from Monday onwards, nearly a year after they were closed across the country amid Covid-19 outbreak in March last year.
Online classes for students who wish to continue to with remote learning will also continue and they will neither be bound to attend classroom sessions nor will their names be struck off the school roll, as per the SOP(standard operating procedure) issued by the education department earlier this week.
Suman Sharma, principal of Government Model Senior Secondary School in Sector 4/7, said that the school will become fully operational with classes starting for classes 1 and 2. “Children in these grades will be returning to school after one whole year. Resumption of in-person sessions will give teachers the chance to provide more robust support to students, many of whom are not being able to keep up with online classes,” said Sharma. She added that the school had been in touch with parents and was expecting a good turnout on Monday. “We are taking necessary measures in view of the pandemic and expect children to return back to classrooms safely,” said Sharma.
Schools across the country were closed in March last year amid the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Voluntary visits to schools in Haryana for doubt-clearing sessions were allowed from September onwards, followed by regular classes from November 2 for students in classes 9 to 12. Schools were reopened for students in classes 6 to 8 on February 1 and classes 3 to 5 on February 24.
As per the government directive, both government and private schools will be allowed to conduct classes of three-and-a-half-hour duration from 10am till 1.30pm for students in these classes. Students are also required to produce a parental consent letter. The directive also mentioned that cooked meals will not be provided in schools; instead dry ration will be provided.
Most private schools said that parents were not willing to send children to school for in-person classroom sessions yet. Anita Malhotra, principal of Lotus Valley International School, said that the school had sought feedback from parents but there were not many takers for offline classes. “We had sought feedback from parents but most of them are not ready to send children to school yet. We will continue with online classes for now,” said Malhotra.
She, however, added that the school might initiate classes from the new academic session in April. “When the school reopens in the new session, we might start with offline classes in batches. All these decisions will be taken while taking into cognisance of the evolving Covid-19 situation,” she said.