MAHARASHTRA GOVERNMENT TO CONSIDER SCHOOL REOPENING FOR CLASSES 1 TO 4

Source – The Times Of India

The state  School  Education  Minister, Varsha Gaikwad on Tuesday said that the Maharashtra government will be considering the resuming of classes for students of 1 to 4 soon if schools can smoothly run classes for 5 to 8 that are set to restart from 27^th January. Addressing the reporters in Parbhani, a city almost 515 km from Mumbai, she said that RT-PCR tests for most of the teachers were already conducted ahead of school reopening and schools have been sanitized. The parents are requested to send their wards to school wearing face masks. However, the state government gave its final nod for reopening of schools for classes 9 – 12 on 23^rd of November last year only, nearly nine months after the state-imposed lockdown due to Covid -19 with strict implementation of pandemic protocols. An official from the state education department confirmed that some 22 lakhs students have started attending offline classes  ( for 9 to 12 ) in nearly 22,204 schools in the state, and now classes are resumed for 5 to 8 ( from 27 January ) where almost 78.47 lakh students are enrolled. The classes will primarily focus on subjects like science, mathematics and English only so that students will have to carry fewer books.