Many schools switched to online education a few months back, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, to continue providing education to students and keep them productively occupied during the pandemic. While it greatly helped as no other option was available, online education cannot replace classroom teaching in the long run, keeping in mind many students, as well as the schools, don’t have the technology required for the same.
Case in point, the underprivileged students do not have access to smartphones, laptops and high-speed Internet. They have suffered from a lack of education in the time of the pandemic which is a cause of concern. Also, the students who could not continue their sports training are suffering.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare allowed a phased reopening of schools from 21 September for classes 9-12 on a “voluntary basis” and with written permission from the parents. In many states, schools have not opened so far while partial reopening has been seen in some.
Resource strain, managing students and teachers as well as the expectations of parents while not overburdening the staff and increased operational costs are making the decision of reopening schools difficult for the administrations.
Since Covid-19 is not going to go away soon, schools are getting ready to resume classes with safety and hygiene protocols, operational changes and use of technology for seamless learning.
The circumstances are indeed worrisome, but schools are leaving no stone unturned to ensure the safety and well-being of students and staff. They will be taking the utmost precautions for the same.
Bharat Goyal, founder and director of Bhartiyam International School, Uttarakhand, opines, “The crucial aspects of reopening include regular disinfection of school building, sanitisation protocols of every individual entering the premises, directions and marking for maintaining social distancing inside the school premise. To ensure the above, automatic sanitiser dispensing machine, digital face mask detection, automatic temperature sensors, queue marks and more will be used. The school furniture has been reorganised to ensure social distancing inside the school premise including classrooms. SOPs have been made for administration, teachers and students.”
He adds that besides these, the stress of implementing a blended offline-online model is extreme. The schools have to ensure that there is a seamless transition between online to the hybrid model, but many factors are posing difficulties in its implementation. Since the entire student strength will not be coming to school for offline classes, so enabling the same class online is a challenge for many. Otherwise, the teachers will have to take the same class twice.
Goyal points out, “This poses increased pressure for teachers wherein they are currently facing pay cuts and with an increased workload, there is a big chance of health risks as well. The transport system will also to run in extreme loss with half capacity students boarding at any given time. All these are posing operational problems in front of school administrations, in a country like India where the majority of schools are budget schools, with low technology adoption and in Covid-19 pandemic, their fee collections has also been low.”
All the classrooms of the school are equipped with smartboard and digital communication equipment. The teachers would be taking offline classes and share the same content digitally. Undoubtedly, this blended model is relatively expensive but can pave a way for a smooth transition between online to a hybrid model, which is the need of the hour.
Like some other private schools, Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi, too is equipped with the necessary technologies to provide a seamless learning experience. Principal Alka Kapur informs that teachers would be simultaneously taking offline and online classes. Going a step ahead, the school has also come up with O lab app for practical experiments. The syllabus has also been reduced by 30%.
“Since the talks of reopening of schools have been doing the rounds, we have been receiving calls/texts from worried parents/guardians of our students. We understand that these are tough times. Everybody is scared, especially parents. Yet, complying with government norms is essential,” says Uttam Singh, principal of Jindal Public School, Dwarka, Delhi. He informs, “We have been waiting for the government’s orders to reopen the school. To prepare ourselves for the reopening, we have been involved in diligent planning of the precautions to be undertaken. We have placed the desks and chairs a few feet apart to avoid any physical contact. We will be asking the students to sanitise their hands at regular intervals. At the entry point, the guards and teachers will be monitoring the body temperature of students and sanitise them. Every student, staff member, management, etc, will have to go through the same routine to ensure safety.”
Many schools have reopened in Uttar Pradesh. Talking about it, the spokesperson of VIBGYOR High, Lucknow, emphasises, “In compliance with the statutory guidelines, we restarted physical classes from 20 October 2020, for grades 9 to 12. The safety and well-being of students and staff are our absolute priority, and hence we ensured that the entire campus including playgrounds, laboratories, corridors, and stairs, were disinfected before reopening and that the process is being carried out regularly. Signages have been put up to facilitate adherence to social distancing norms, and we have limited the class size to 15 students.”
The spokesperson adds, “Only students with written permissions from their parents are allowed to attend the school, and they wear face masks and face shields. The staff wears masks and temperature checks are conducted for students and staff before entry and exit in the campus. We have also set up medical care stations around the campus, for quick access by students in case they feel unwell, and we also plan to conduct drives to raise awareness about Covid-19 precautions.”
Like various other schools, Greenwood High International School, Bengaluru, is waiting for the go-ahead from the government to implement the phased reopening of school. School principal Aloysius D’Mello underlines, “Our Classrooms and campus are large enough to maintain social distancing. We are also introducing coatings on frequently used surfaces, which cause ionising substances mutating viruses. Our buses will now be equipped with thermal indicators, we will have thermal indicators at entry and exit points in the school and the entry and exits will be limited.”
Talking about how schools can meet the challenges at hand, Kapur says, “Schools have to maintain proper physical distancing among the students. They would have to talk to students and concisely explain to them its importance. Also, the schools would have to make sure that a member of the staff is always keeping an eye on the students.”
“Amid all this, the most important thing to remember is that if the parents aren’t convinced, they don’t have to send their children to school. The schools are primarily being opened to give an option to the students, who otherwise have no means of accessing education,” asserts Kapur.
Parents are naturally concerned about the safety of their children and are talking to them about things to keep in mind whenever they will be attending school. “I would first of all ask my child not to remove her mask at any cost. It’s a necessary and basic precaution against the novel coronavirus. Secondly, I would ask her to sanitise each and everything she touches, uses or sits on including chairs, table, books, stationery and more. Thirdly, I would ask her not to touch or hug or shake hands with others. Just to be 100% sure, I would ask her to keep a distance from her friends (at least 1 metre),” says Anika Chawla, a Delhi resident, whose daughter is in 11th class.
WHAT PRECAUTIONS SHOULD SCHOOLS TAKE?
1. The safest way for students to commute to and from school would be via private vehicles of their parents/guardians. Other modes of conveyance should be avoided for the time being.
2. Thermal scanners should be placed at all the entry points to ensure that any student or staff, who is showing signs of sickness, could be isolated and treated as quickly as possible.
3. The classes should be conducted in a staggered manner. This will mean that at a time only a certain number of students would be present in the class. This would allow the school authorities to easily maintain proper physical distancing among the students and further reduce the chances of infection getting spread. Blended learning—with the help of webcams, speakers and microphones, supported by a strong network—would also play a major role in this, as the students can learn via a balanced combination of online and offline modes.
4. Schools should also consider investing in touchless sanitiser and water dispensers. Since the Covid-19 strain is notorious for spreading via surfaces, arranging touchless appliances could make a huge difference.
—By Alka Kapur, principal of Modern Public School, Shalimar Bagh, Delhi.