Colleges and higher education institutions in Kerala are likely to be closed from next week. The decision will be taken after a covid review meeting to be conducted by higher education minister R Bindu today.
The review meeting is going to be conducted in the wake of the rising number of covid cases.Kerala records a 100% rise in covid cases in the past few days.
Kerala is reporting a daily average of above 20000 covid cases. On Wednesday the reported number went up to 34,000 and the health minister has warned people about the third wave the state is witnessing.
The classes of students upto class 8 were suspended earlier this week by the Kerala government. As of now the government is assessing the possibility of re-establishing online classes for college students.”If clusters emerge, the principals have been directed to close down the institutions for 15 days”, said the health minister.
The students and the parents are concerned about the rising number of covid cases in Kerala and are demanding online classes.the test positivity rates in some districts are above 20% and near to 50% in Thiruvananthapuram. Students’ organizations are also in the forefront, asking the government to conduct online classes and to suspend the offline classes.
As the coming three weeks might prove crucial to the covid management in the state, the temporary shutdown of educational institutions might be favored during the review meeting to be held on thursday. Since higher education institutes have the possibility to become infection clusters, the ministry will take a decision accordingly.
The decisions on changing the schedule of the ongoing semester exams of various universities in Kerala will be taken after the review meeting. Some autonomous colleges in Kerala have already reverted to online classes in fear of covid infections.
Colleges and Higher education institutions in several states in India have already switched to either online mode or hybrid mode. Maharashtra, a state with more number of covid cases closed all educational institutions till February 15. Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Haryana, and Rajasthan have announced the closing of schools and colleges for online classes. Telangana government has extended the Sankranti holidays till January 30 in fear of Omicron infections. In Puducherry too, the institutions will be closed till January 30.
