BHOPAL: The schools in the city, ready to welcome the students, are waiting for the district crisis management committee’s order. The committee is yet to issue guidelines and SOP about Covid-19 safety norms.
A couple of days back, the chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had announced that schools in the state will be reopened from July 26 for students of classes 11 and 12 with 50% attendance.
Principal of Anand Vihar School, Shailesh Zope, says he is prepared to reopen the school but is waiting for a circular on SOP. “Every time something new is prescribed. So, it may be that some more things may be added to the new SOP,” he says. “We want everything to be systematic because we can’t take risks in the case of children,” Zope says. Most probably SOP may come within two days and if it gets delayed, they have no issues in reopening the school two days after the stipulated date, he says.
He says he has already put in place the precautionary measures as he had reopened the school after the lockdown last year. There is a thermal scanner at the gate and also face masks and hand sanitiser. They have drawn circles on the playground to help students maintain social distance and deploy a person to ensure proper hand sanitisation, Zope said. “We don’t give entry to students without face masks. If they don’t have it, we provide it without any charge. We allow even less than 50% capacity of a classroom, ” he says. The classroom is sanitised before and after the class, he says
Similarly, public relations officer of Campion School Winston Vijay Minj says they are already prepared and have been following all the government terms and conditions regarding Covid-protection norms for the last year. “We are waiting for the district crisis management committee’s order regarding the reopening of the school . As soon as we get the written order, we are ready to reopen the school,” he says.
Principal of Government Subhash Higher Secondary School for Excellence, Bhopal , Sudhakar Parashar says that they are ready to welcome the students as soon as they get a written order regarding the reopening. The sanitation work of classrooms and toilets has been done. There is also a facility of facemasks and hand sanitisation for those students who don’t have masks or can’t afford them. He said that they already segregated students in every section into two groups, which will be asked to attend school on alternate days. Also, they will stagger the timing of the end of the classes so that there is no crowd when the students leave the school, he said.
