PANAJI
Finally, it is back to school for thousands of secondary and higher secondary school students in Goa after almost two years of being locked in a virtual world since March 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic rocked their world.
The State Directorate of Education on Thursday issued the circular asking educational institutions to open up their campuses for students of class I to XII from Monday next.
“As Covid -19 cases are reducing day by day in the State, it is decided by the competent Authority to re-open all the educational institutions from Std I to Std. XII w.e.f. 21/02/2022 by following appropriate behavior and as per SOP guidelines," said the circular issued by Bhushan Savaikar, the Director of Education.
Some schools, however, have already begun conducting classes in the physical mode for some batches of students from Thursday.
Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant disclosed that the Directorate of Education will decide on modalities related to restarting of schools in offline mode from February 21 by taking opinions of stakeholders such as PTAs, Headmaster Associations etc into consideration.
With a few months remaining for the academic year to end, concerns were raised about modalities related to uniform, books etc by students, parents as well as teachers.
Sawant, however asserted that all exams henceforth will be in offline mode.
The DoE had in November last permitted schools, which were shut for offline academics since March 2020, to hold offline lectures days before the students were to break for the winter (Diwali) vacation.
However, when the third wave of Covid-19 infections hit the State in December-end, schools were ordered closed again with resumption of online teaching from January 2 until Republic Day (January 26). Later, the DoE extended the closure of schools until February 15, a day after polling was held for the Goa assembly elections.
Over the last nearly two years, academic work has largely been conducted online and assessment norms for promoting students was done internally with exams also conducted online.
Experts and academicians have been warning for nearly a year that the abnormality could lead to a catastrophe with a generational knowledge gap.
Mental health experts too are cautioning authorities that the situation could be serious among the young if their life routines aren't reversed back to some normalcy.
