PANAJI
Students of Std VII and VIII returned to classrooms on Thursday with schools commencing physical mode instruction in most government and aided institutions in Goa after nearly sixteen months of staying off their campuses.
Sources in the education department said a majority of the schools began classes in the physical mode for standards VII and VIII on Thursday itself while some others have decided to begin on Monday next.
School managements have been given the leeway by the department to choose between the offline and online mode of instruction depending on the availability of space and infrastructure to ensure SOPs related to the Covid pandemic are strictly followed.
In some cases, schools are following the 50-50 formula conducting online and offline classes for three days each in a week.
Students are being seated at 50 per-cent carrying capacity of the classrooms as per the SOPs laid down by the department.
Schools in Goa had suspended physical classes since March 2020 when the pandemic hit and have been carrying out all academic work in the online mode since then.
But educationists and experts have expressed grave concern that the prolonged continuation of instruction online could contribute to irreversible damage including ‘knowledge gap’ for a generation.
The UNICEF India too had been lobbying for several months now with governments to reopen schools as early as possible and has even warned of a “generational catastrophe” if delayed for too long.
