The School Education Department of Madhya Pradesh has announced through twitter that the schools in Madhya Pradesh will be open from February 1, 2022. The schools were closed in early January due to increasing covid cases in the country due to the mutated variant of coronavirus ‘omicron’. The schools will be allowed to function with 50% attendance as per the official release.
The School Education Department has allowed the schools to start offline classes for students from classes 1 to 12 with a maximum of 50% attendance. The government was not considering opening schools for offline classes due to the spread of the covid virus across the country. The decision to open schools by the Department has come at a surprise.
The Department has also mentioned that residential schools will be allowed to conduct offline classes. The schools with a residential system of education should also comply with the government decision of 50% attendance to start offline classes from February 1, 2022.
As per the tweet in the official handle of the School Education Department of MP, the decision to start offline classes for students from class 1 to class 12 has been taken after consulting with medical experts.
The board exams for classes 10 and 12 are scheduled to begin from mid February. The class 10 exam will start from February 18 and class 12 from February 17. The students as well as their related communities were hoping for a postponement of the board exams. In the light of this order, the postponement of the board exams is highly unlikely.
The students and various student unions are demanding the conduct of the board exams in an online mode in fear of the pandemic. The government seems to be stubborn in their decision to conduct the board exams offline. The pre-board exams in the state were already over. The exams were conducted as take-home online exams.
If the number of covid cases in the state remain stable or start increasing, the department may reconsider their decision to conduct the exams. In that case, a new date sheet may get released or the exams could be conducted online. Further decisions regarding the offline classes and the board exams will be taken after a review meeting chaired by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
