Team Herald
PANJIM: The State government has taken a decision approving commencement of classes in physical mode for Classes VII and VIII from Thursday onwards.
This was announced by Education Director Bhushan Savoikar on Monday. He further added that an official circular in this regard will be issued on Tuesday morning.
However, there has been no decision yet about the recommendations that the State Covid Task Force had given the government last week, to resume classes from nursery and above by November 22 in physical mode. The Chief Minister had also stated that he would announce a decision about the resumption of classes by Saturday, November 20.
Thus, classes from Class VI and below will continue to be held in online mode as of now. Classes from IX to XII are already being held in physical mode.
The State Covid Task Force had held its meeting last week, which was chaired by the Chief Minister. Post the meeting, the CM had stated that Education Department would examine how these classes had functioned before coming to a decision about resuming classes below Class IX.
He had also expressed concern about what will happen to school clusters and complexes where 500 to 1000 students gather for their respective classes. He had pointed out that this is the section of the population (under 18) that has not been vaccinated and that there were also practical issues that had to be resolved such as the timings and capacity of these classes and how students would reach their respective schools.
He had instructed Education Department to get feedback from school managements, Parent Teacher Associations (PTA), Assistant District Educational Inspectors (ADEI), political parties etc.
The task force had reasoned that the Covid cases had dropped in the State, that the impact on the young student community would be low and that continuing to hold classes in an online mode could create psychological issues for the students.
