Odisha: Physical classes for students of Class I to VII to resume from Monday

The State Government had reopened the schools for the students of Class 8 to 12 from February 7. However, the authorities postponed the physical classes for students of Class I to VII from February 14 to 28 after several district collectors sought additional time for undertaking cleaning of schools that were to be used as polling stations for recently conducted Panchayat Polls across the State.

Bhubaneswar (Odisha): The physical classes for students of Class I to VII in Odisha will resume from Monday, state School & Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash informed. “As the students have been away from schools and have not attended the classes offline in past two years, our focus will be to refresh their mind through a special programme for next week without laying emphasis much on studies. The teaching process will start after one week,” Dash told reporters here.

Students have been promoted to upper classes without class examinations in the last two years. Therefore, we are planning to make a mechanism after holding a meeting with academicians to make the students aware of the studies,” he added.

On conducting annual Class-10 and Plus 2 examinations this year, the minister stated that a decision in this regard will be taken after receiving the report from the Board of Secondary Education (BSE) and Council of Higher Secondary Education (CHSE).

Earlier, the State Government had reopened the schools for the students of Class 8 to 12 from February 7. However, the authorities postponed the physical classes for students of Class I to VII from February 14 to 28 after several district collectors sought additional time for undertaking cleaning of schools that were to be used as polling stations for recently conducted Panchayat Polls across the State.

“As several school campuses will be used as polling stations which will witness the heavy movement of polling personnel, including police and voters, this may pose a risk of the Covid-19 infection among small children,” School and Mass Education Secretary Bishnupada Sethi had said in a letter.

During the period, the students were asked to attend the online classes.