Schools reopen in Ghaziabad after a year from grade 1 to 5

Public and private schools in the region to open for students from grades 1 to 5 on Monday after being closed for almost a year following the Covid-19 epidemic.

Public and private schools in the region reopened for grades 1 to 5 students on Monday after being closed for about a year following the Covid-19 epidemic. Public primary schools saw about 70% of the attendance, but the attendance at private schools was low, officials from the Department of Basic Education said. The officials said visits to private schools had gone awry as many schools had completed their session. They said that punctuality in 126 private schools across the district had reached almost 20%.

In February, the UP government released a standard school operating system to restart classes 6 to 8 from February 10 and classes 1 to 5 from March 1 with ‘parental consent’ to send children to school. Some private schools have said that the study of various classes is over and it is in the next session that students will come through offline classes. “At our school, the curriculum is over. Therefore, the current time is for testing only. Therefore, we started the offline test for classes 6 to 12. And we have a presence of almost 95-98%. We follow all the guidelines. From kindergarten to 6th grade, we will start testing online now,” said a spokesperson for Delhi Public School, Indrapuram.

Gautam Budh Nagar's chief education officer, Sanjay Upadhyaya, said on the first day of the re-opening of classes 1 to 5, schools recorded 45% attendance. “It is an inspiring organization from the day the establishment of 512 schools for the students of these classes. We are confident that the number of participants will increase slightly in the coming days. We have made some student arrangements. While on Monday and Friday, classes will be conducted for students in classes 1 and 5, Grade 2 and 4 students have been asked to attend on Tuesday and Saturday. For Grade 3 students, classes will be held on Wednesday and Thursday,” he said.

Subash Jain, president of Ghaziabad chapter of the Independent Schools Federation of India, an organization of about 100 independent schools, said the presence of students was unpopular on Monday in grades one to five. of 6 to 8 classes. In many schools, online testing has begun. Therefore, offline availability is very low. The new school season will start in April and we are preparing for offline classes. We expect the government to repeal the ‘parental consent’ clause,” he said.

Avrati Agarwal, head of a public primary school in Nabipur in Muradnagar, said unlike private schools, attendance at her school was 100% on Monday. We provided children with masks and sanitizer, and balloons. One week, which we call ‘shoonya week,’ we have been asked to take on the activities of children so that they can get used to the normal routine,” added Agarwal.

Members of the parent’s association said they conducted a survey of about 250 parents and about 97% of them were unwilling to send their children to school. “Attendance rates are low as most parents are reluctant to send their children to school due to the outbreak of Covid cases in many provinces and low availability of vaccines. Young children find it very difficult to follow Covid's goals. In our district, vaccination coverage is not yet available for teachers and school staff. Therefore, it is best for offline classes to begin the next session,” said Vivek Tyagi, spokesman for the Ghaziabad Parents’ Association.