Bhubaneswar: With daily caseload of Covid-19 on the rise and amid Omicron scare, Odisha government Sunday postponed the reopening of primary schools which were scheduled to resume January 3.
School and Mass Education (S&ME) Minister Samir Ranjan Dash today said that the government decided not to reopen schools for students of Classes I to V from January 3 after officials visited various primary schools across the state and held discussions with the stakeholders.
“As per our earlier decision, nodal officers had visited schools across Odisha. After a number of parents and guardians of students expressed their reservations and due to the recent rise in Covid-19 cases, the government postponed the reopening of primary schools,” he informed.
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Dash, however, maintained that physical mode of teaching for Class VI to X students will continue as scheduled. Besides, summative assessment examinations for Class X students will be carried out from January 5, 2022 as per the schedule prepared by the Board of Secondary Education (BSE).
According to a notification issued by Odisha Information and Public Relations (I&PR) department, around 23,000 primary schools in Odisha would have opened January 3, 2022 and the remaining 3,093 schools from January 10.
Notably, Secretary of S&ME Department Satyabrata Sahu Thursday had said that decision of the Odisha government pertaining to reopening of primary schools from January 3, 2022 in the state remains unchanged.
The state government decision evoked mixed reactions among educationists and parents of the students with a majority of them opposing the decision. Many parents opined that as children tend not to follow protocols, they are prone to getting infected by the virus.
Earlier, confusion over reopening of primary schools in Odisha was created after Director of Medical Education and Training (DMET) Rama Raman Mohanty Wednesday informed that the state government’s decision to reopen primary schools may be revoked in view of the surging situation of Omicron variant.
It is pertinent to mention here that Odisha registered 424 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, taking the tally to 10,55,556.
PNN