Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Friday said that all schools in Delhi will remain closed till July 31 in the view of the current situation arising due to the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. Sisodia, who also holds the portfolio of Education Minister, convened a high-level meeting on the plan to reopen schools in the national capital.
Earlier in June, the Deputy CM had also written a letter to Union Human Resource Minister (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal `Nishank` requesting him to consider the new role of schools. He wrote that we still have to decide whether we will rebuild our schools keeping in mind the needs of our country and society or wait for some other country to do something, after that we copy-paste it here.
A district-wise report based on online suggestions of 829 teachers, 61 school heads, 920 students and 829 parents of government and private schools of Delhi and 23262 teachers and 98423 parents at school level was considered in the meeting.
Sisodia and his team received various suggestions on changing approaches to learning and reopening of classes in Delhi schools. There was a suggestion that primary classes should be held once or twice in a week with the strength of 12-15 students in a class.
Another point was made that classes can be conducted on alternate days for students of classes 3 to 5. There were also suggestions for students to continue online education as far as possible, to do proper sanitization in all classrooms, to distribute masks to students, to conduct thermal screening of each student at school and reduce syllabus.
Similarly, for classes 6 to 8, there was a suggestion to conduct classes in a small group once or twice a week. Some people also suggested class 3 days a week. Many people also insisted on reducing syllabus from 30 to 50 per cent. There was also a suggestion to ban students' mass activity and the crowd.
For classes 9 and 10, it was suggested to the Education Minister that classes should be taken in very small groups once or twice a week. Some people suggested daily classes for class X. There was a suggestion to continue the online class and videos of YouTube channel Khan Academy.
It was suggested to conduct classes of 11th and 12th on alternate days and online classes should be carried on remaining days. There was also a suggestion of a reduction in their syllabus. Some also suggested that only 3 to 4 hours of classes should be carried per day.
In the meeting, Deputy CM Manish Sisodia said that we should make a plan to reopen schools in the light of all the suggestions that can teach the students to live with the corona and prepare them for a new role in new circumstances.
