PANAJI
Students walking or travelling in uniforms with bags on their shoulders will once again be a familiar site across Goa once again from Monday as thousands of students will get back to school campuses in a fairly 'normal' ecosystem after nearly two years of a disrupted education system due to the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak in March 2020.
Despite the gradually rising daily infection numbers, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who also holds the education portfolio said, the planned re-opening of schools will go ahead on Monday morning.
Sawant said, the government will closely monitor the emerging Covid-19 situation in the State over the next fifteen days and then review the matter of continuing with schools functioning.
Students from Class I to XII are expected to get back to classrooms from Monday morning, Officiating Director of Education, Shailesh Zingade, has said
Only Class XI students, where the admission processes are still underway, may take a few more days to get back to schools, he added.
"Some institutions have raised queries about certain minor logistical issues but hopefully these will be sorted out on the ground and the reopening of schools will all progress smoothly," Zingade said.
Meanwhile the representatives of schools at the Cujira school complex held meetings with the authorities and the police with respect to the traffic chaos often witnessed there.
Zingade said, the police have assured to deploy adequate forces to manage the smooth flow of traffic which normally gets clogged due to a large number of parents ferrying their children to school in private vehicles.
Meanwhile, as students and teachers are excited and ready themselves to start off normal academic work in classrooms, academicians are worried that the disruptions over the last two years may have widened learner inequalities among the student community.
Most headmasters and principals The Goan spoke to were excited over the reopening of schools but some cautioned that it will take some time for full normalcy to return on their campuses.
UNESCO has from the beginning been warning that pandemic disruption has increased inequalities and exacerbated a pre-existing education crisis.
It said, the most vulnerable learners were the hardest hit due to lack of connectivity and devices, when teaching was switched to online mode.
"Prioritizing education as a public good is crucial to avoid a generational catastrophe and to drive a sustainable recovery," an UNESCO assessment of the pandemic's disruption and the way forward to restore education, has said.
