Today, the Mayor of Pune Murlidhar Mohol took to Twitter to announce that the schools and colleges in the city shall remain closed until the next order. Earlier, the state government of Maharashtra in consultation with the school education minister has decided to re-open the schools from January 24, 2022. However, the decision regarding the re-opening of schools was solely dependent on the active caseload in a particular city or district.
Hence, now after scrutinizing all the data regarding the infection rate, a number of active cases, and red zones in the city, the mayor has tweeted that schools shall remain closed as of now. Check out his complete tweet below:
It read – “All schools and colleges in Pune will remain closed! Considering the increasing number of corona victims, the decision to keep all schools and colleges in Pune closed was taken at the Corona review meeting of the Guardian Minister held today. The next meeting will take a decision after reviewing the number of patients.”
Since yesterday the decision regarding the re-opening of the school was impending. Post this, the mayor has called for a high-level meeting with child specialists, doctors, task force, and a panel of parents. Therein, after going through all the data available for the city, the committee decided to keep the schools closed for the safety of children. While talking to a leading daily, the Pune DM said, that the final decision of re-opening of the schools shall be taken after conducting the covid review meeting this week.
This tweet was lauded by the parents and students as they were overjoyed after hearing this news. There was a sense of disappointment after the Maharashtra government announced its decision to re-opening the schools from next week for all the classes. There were state-wise protests against this decision as the positivity rate is still high in the state citing the omicron variant.
Students-Parents Reaction
Lots of parents and NGO activists have said that the state government has taken the decision abruptly and this is not the right time for the children to step out when the rate of infection is very high. A few of them also questioned the state machinery for their preparations regarding the vaccination programmes for the younger ones. Check out some of the reactions received on the mayor’s tweet in the space below:
Also Read – Schools and colleges may reopen in Punjab
Read – UNICEF against the closure of schools amid rise in COVID-19 infection
Looking at the stats of Pune, we can check that at least 3,500 children have tested positive for Covid in the last month out of which 100 children were hospitalized due to severe symptoms.
