Schools unlikely to open until late August, govt hopes situation ‘will be favourable’ by then

An HRD Ministry official confirmed that while guidelines were being prepared, schools will possibly only open in late August, after the Class 10 and 12 results.

Representational Image | Students wearing masks in a classroom | Abhishek Saha | ANI

New Delhi: Schools in India are unlikely to open till August as the government thinks the situation is not favourable at present, ThePrint has learnt.

Senior officials in the Ministry of Human Resource Development confirmed to ThePrint that even though the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had earlier given July as the window to re-open schools, it will not be possible to do so because of the present Covid-19 situation.

“We will be able to declare results for Class 10 and 12 by mid-August and then think of re-opening the schools, only until late August or after that. We are hoping that situation will be favourable for school re-opening after that,” a senior official told ThePrint.

The official added that whenever a decision is taken, it will only be after consultation with the MHA and the Ministry of Health.

“We are preparing the school safety guidelines right now, but the decision of re-opening the schools will only be taken after consultation with MHA and health ministry following all protocols,” he said.

This was also confirmed by the HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in an interview on 3 June. In the interview with BBC, the minister had said, “We are hoping that conditions will be favourable for schools to re-open after August.”

Parents had opposed move to re-open schools

While announcing ‘Unlock 1.0’ on 30 May, the MHA had said that schools, colleges and education institutions like coaching centres can think of re-opening after consultation with the states.

However, there was large-scale opposition to this decision from several parents across the country. Over two lakh parents had signed a petition raising their objections to re-opening the schools in July.

The parents in their petition called it “playing with fire” and wanted schools to re-open only after a “vaccine is out”.

Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia had also expressed his reservations over re-opening schools and urged the HRD Ministry to take the decision very carefully.

समय आ गया है कि कोरोना के सहअस्तित्व को स्वीकार करते हुए देश में स्कूलों की भूमिका नए सिरे से तय की जाय…

केंद्रीय मानव संसाधन विकास मंत्री @DrRPNishank जी को मेरा पत्र pic.twitter.com/d7ZXgAO2zs

— Manish Sisodia (@msisodia) June 6, 2020

In his letter to Pokhriyal, he said that we need to learn to live with the coronavirus now. “Since we need to learn to live with corona now, it would be better if the already existing learning space, which is school, take up that role.”

However, he also added that parents need to be informed about the risks of sending children back to schools — “Parents need to be taken in confidence and they should be explained about the risk of factors with facts.”