By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Nov. 27: Many schools from across the country have resumed classes in physical presence of both teachers and students from this week.
The schools, which remained closed for eight months, started reopening after the government issued School Resumption Working Guideline allowing schools’ operation.
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST) had stated that reopening schools was not mandatory in all areas and the local governments, consulting with the stakeholders, could decide on this matter. However, many local governments across the country decided to resume classes only after Tihar festival.
Although the schools started resuming classes, guardians are against it.
Suprabhat Bhandari, chairman of Guardian’s Federation Nepal, said that the government must back off on its decision because children are not kit for testing coronavirus and that the situation would aggravate if the schools reopened.
“Before deciding to reopen schools, there should be clarity on how safety protocols are to be enforced and who will bear the cost of disinfection and ensure availability of masks, sanitisers and water to wash hands,” Bhandari asked.
Binay Kusiyait, an educationist, said that there was no option to reopening schools in those places where virtual learning couldn’t be effective and that schools could be reopened only if there was assurance that children were safe there.
Dr. Rabindra Pandey, public health expert, said reopening schools in the mountain and hilly areas where there was a low risk of virus infection was not bad, and that schools must not reopen in the crowded city areas for this year.
Meanwhile, according to Our Bhairahawa correspondent, schools at Siddharthanagar Municipality have resumed from Wednesday as per the decision taken by the education committee of the Municipality.
The meeting decided to resume classes in municipality's schools by following health protocols.