By Manjima Dhakal
Kathmandu,Sept 1: Lately, many schools across the country have started teaching-learning activities in physical presence after concerned District COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre (DCCMC) gave the local governments permission to do so in those areas where there is negligible risk of the coronavirus transmission.

Analysing the health security risk factors, the government has categorised the risk zones into four levels: red, amber, yellow and green. Red region will have a hard nature of lockdown, amber will mixed, yellow soft lockdown, and green minimal.

Deepak Sharma, spokesperson for the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST), said that now schools could resume in-person classes in compliance with the decision of the centre.
After getting permission from the DDCMC to operate schools, local governments can take more decisions based on the schools’ status. “If the local governments feel safe enough to open any school of their area, they can go ahead. Therefore, the decision may vary from school to school under the same local government,” said Sharma.

According to Sharma, schools must remain closed in red zone, those in amber zone can call students only to distribute education materials and for personal consultation with teachers, schools in yellow zone can resume classes physically by inviting one-third of their total students and those in green zone can resume in-person classes.

However, they must follow health standard and School Operation Working Procedure even if they resume physical classes adhering to the requirements of the local governments, Sharma added.
Now, many schools across the country, including those in Province 2, Humla and in some municipalities of Kathmandu Valley, have decided to go ahead with physical classes.

Kathmandu-based Gokarneshwor Municipality has also decided to operate all its schools from Tuesday after guardians and other stakeholders suggested resuming teaching learning activities in physical presence.
“The guardians requested us to open schools citing that it was not logical to close only schools when all other sectors are open, and we decided to open them,” said Manoj Kumar Dhungana, spokesperson for Gokarneshwor Municipality.

He said they would close schools again if the situation worsened. However, Chief District Officer of Kathmandu Kali Prasad Parajuli said that they could not take a risk by allowing schools to open as the situation has not returned to normalcy.
Likewise, according to our correspondents, many schools of Province 2 have resumed physical classes after the local governments gave them green signals to do so. Similarly, Humla DCCMC has also decided to allow schools to resume regular classes.