PANAJI
Yearning to get back to school after the pandemic upturned their world eighteen months ago, a group of students backed by some teachers and parents, took to the streets in the capital city and demonstrated on Wednesday at the iconic Azad Maidan in the capital city to voice their demand for physical exams and classes.
They marched in a rally voicing their demand to begin classes and exams in the physical (offline) mode. Student participation was mostly from the RSS-run Hegdewar High School.
According to a group of students who were part of the rally, they have presented an appeal in writing to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who is incidentally also the State's education minister, that exams be conducted in the offline mode and also to begin physical classes in schools.
Students of schools and higher secondary schools in Goa have been off-campus and working online for over eighteen months, ever since they were shut in March 2020.
Experts fear a knowledge gap for a generation and UNICEF-India which has been lobbying with governments to re-start schools as soon as possible is even warning of a possible "generational catastrophe".
Incidentally, the Education Department had recently issued its go-ahead for the conduct of examinations in the offline mode for classes XI and XII in High Secondary Schools.
Director of Education, Bhushan Savaikar, had said in the circular, however, that authorities in the HSSs should ensure Covid guidelines are strictly adhered to, including conducting all activity with 50 per cent capacity, ensuring social-distancing and masking.
Staff, both teaching and non-teaching staff who are fully vaccinated only will be permitted on the campus while those who are not vaccinated must do a test and produce an RT-PCR negative test, which will be valid for seven days and the individual will have to do a fresh test thereafter.
