Bhubaneswar: In order to safeguard children from health hazards, the Odisha Government on Thursday announced that students from Standard I to VII will attend physical classes in schools from 28th February 2022 onwards.
The School and Mass Education Department has said that schools for Standard/ Class-1 to VII will open from 14th Feb as scheduled. However, students will not come to school and attend online classes.
The new decision came after District Collectors, in their reports submitted to the S&ME Dept, have sought additional time for undertaking cleaning, bush cutting, minor repairs, and ensuring a clean environment to the small school-going children citing that these schools had remained closed for nearly two years.
The District Collectors have also pointed out that in the meantime, the election process for PRIs, 2022 is going on and most of the polling personnel engaged for the poll consists of teaching and non-teaching staff of this Department. All these polling personnel are undergoing training and engaged in other related Election works.
Moreover, many of the school campuses will be used as polling stations where there will be heavy movement of polling personnel including Police and the general public including Voters. This may create health hazards to the school-going small children on account of COVID -19.
Bishnupada Sethi, Principal Secretary, School and Mass Education Department, has written a letter to authorities concerned including all District Collectors and DEOs into this effect.
“Based on the reports of the Collectors, the state government today ordered that the schools may reopen on the scheduled daṭe but students will attend physical classes from 28th February. However, all the Teachers should come to school and ensure thorough cleaning and sanitization of the campus,” the letter read.
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