Odisha: Schools to reopen for Classes VIII, XI after Puja vacation

BHUBANESWAR: The state government on Saturday announced that schools will reopen for students from classes VIII and XI after the Durga Puja vacation. However, online classes will also run concurrently, so the students can choose whatever suits them.
The in-person classes for the Class XI students will be held from 10am to 1.30pm from October 21 onwards, while the Class VIII students can attend the offline classes from 9am to 12.30pm from October 25. No cooked midday meal will be served to the students of Class VIII. They will instead get dry ration. Until now, students from classes IX, X, and XII were being allowed to physical classes with strict adherence to the Covid-19 guidelines.
Even after the schools reopen, the school and mass education and health departments will keep tabs on the health condition of both the students and teachers.
Confirming the same, school and mass education minister Samir Ranjan Dash said, “We will ensure that the teachers and other staff are fully vaccinated. With the schools set to welcome the students after more than one-and-a-half years, the latter are eagerly waiting to meet their friends and teachers in person. But we must not forget that Covid has not disappeared. The situation can turn around for the worse if we lower our guard. Earlier, we had set up special vaccination camps for the schoolteachers and the department will ensure that the staff takes both the doses of the anti-Covid vaccines.”
The minister added that both the online and offline classes will continue for the students and that they can resume the latter in consultation with their parents. The hostels for the students of these classes, too, will reopen from the date of the reopening of the schools in full adherence to the Covid-19 protocol. Parental consent is mandatory for the students to stay in the hostels.
CBK Mohanty, director of medical education and training, said, “With the drop in the Covid-19 cases, the government is planning to reopen the schools in a graded manner. Regular health check-ups of the students and teachers will be done by the schools as well as by teams from the health department.”
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