Private and public schools in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Buddh Nagar or NOIDA are having a tough time to get their pupils from classes 9 to 12 back in the physical classrooms as parents continue to feel anxious in sending their children due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
After recording a mere 14% attendance rate of students in the second week of March 2021, government and aided schools fared better with 39% in both Noida and Greater Noida.
After an officially stated seven-month hiatus due to the pandemic, the state government had allowed careful reopening of classes 9 to 12 from October 19, 2020 as stated by the office of the District Inspector Of Schools (DIOS). However, it seems the official reopening is not making much progress.
The concern majorly lies around class 12 students who need to write their board exams too. The break in studies will affect them greatly as compared to lower class students.
How are schools in Noida functioning in such times?
However, some private schools are meeting the demands of the students without much dependence on physical classes. For example, a high school in Noida, GIIS (Global Indian International School), which is an international CBSE school in NOIDA, is actively engaging with the students through devices and smart documents making life easier for all involved parties.
Apart from this, they are in constant touch with the parents which is increasing confidence among parents about sending their children to school provided high sanitisation measures are taken. Along with this, they have an extremely low student-teacher ratio which reduces risk of contamination since there are fewer people inside a room.
Even though schools have established sanitisation systems with utmost care, it is the lack of confidence in parents which is making them unwilling to send the students. Schools like GIIS are filling that confidence by close communication.
As per records, there are 153 schools in the NOIDA district — 53 of them are government and government-aided while the remaining 100 are private, international or self-financed.
‘Agreed that the schools are preparing the regular classrooms and are ensuring adherence to social distancing guidelines, but I am not sure if students themselves will practise the maturity of following the rules. Even if there are 15-20 students in a class, the probable risk of contracting the infection will ultimately arise’, a Noida resident informed an official of the Press Trust of India when a survey was taken.
There are even special isolation rooms in schools, in case required. There are also the oximeters and thermal detectors as required.
The famous Shiv Nadar School in Noida, which has branches in Gurgaon and Faridabad too, said that 90% of the parents of their pupils had polled to maintain online classes.
As per the results of the survey taken by the school, a majority of parents (90%) were in the favour of the online mode of learning back in October and November. Post that, a call has been taken by the school to not disrupt the online mode of learning till the very end of November which has now reached March.
Another CBSE school in Noida called Shriram Millennium School is not stopping online mode of classes, too.
In a notice sent out to parents earlier in October, Uttar Singh, the school’s director stated that the school considers the health of pupils above everything else and looked for the feedback of parents to suggest the dates for reopening of physical classes.
However, the school had sent out an option to the students wanting physical classes or additional learning sessions, besides the practical classes for science and as well as for some extracurricular activities to be allowed to join if they want to
