Schools to stop online classes once students are vaccinated

KEY STORY

• A few Central board schools, who are still relying on online classes to teach students, have decided to suspend remote learning once their students are vaccinated. The schools are planning a vaccination drive in the first week of January for students of classes X, XI and XII.

• While most schools started offline classes in a phased manner since August 23, many schools did not make the shift as they were worried that their schools could become COVID-19 clusters as children were not vaccinated.

• Mansoor Ali Khan, member, Board of Management, Delhi Public Group of Schools, said they would try to complete both doses of vaccination for students above 15 years by February.

• “All these days, we were reluctant to stop our online classes despite having offline classes as well as we were worried about our students’ health. But after the students are vaccinated, we will stop online classes and will channelise all our teaching resources to offline classes,” he said. He added that offline classes would be more effective in bridging the learning gap among students.

• D. Shashi Kumar, general secretary, Associated Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools in Karnataka said that after students are vaccinated, parents need to ensure that they give consent to students attending classes. “In a few schools, parents are still reluctant and do not want to send their children for offline classes with the increase in number of Omicron cases. But once students are vaccinated, parents need to cooperate and ensure that their children attend offline classes,” he said.

CONCLUSION

• An official of the Department of Primary and Secondary Education said that schools are supposed to conduct both offline and online classes at the moment. “However, once students are vaccinated, we will review the need to conduct both types of classes,” the official added.

• Parents too feel that they would be reassured to send their children to school after they are jabbed. Surekha R., the parent of a class ten student said, “A few parents are not convinced of vaccinating their children. But we will urge the management to ensure that they start offline classes and that bridge courses are conducted so that students pick up their lost skills,” she said.