Aurangabad: Many schools still running – Times of India

Amid the fresh outbreak of Covid, a large number of students from the city have been travelling to these schools, which are located 5 to 10 km from the city. A section of stakeholders, including parents and staffers, has sought closure of these schools in the fringe areas on the line of order to shut down Aurangabad city schools.

“Since Aurangabad has witnessed fresh Covid outbreak in the past few days, we are apprehensive about sending our children to the school. Even if the school is located in the outskirts, the students enrolled there are mostly from the city,” said one parent, preferring anonymity.

A teacher employed in one of the schools concerned said it is risky to operate schools in the fringe areas where students from the city are studying. “The safety of students and staffers along with their families remain a concern,” he said, on the condition of anonymity.

These schools are mostly CBSE or ICSE affiliated institutes.

Prasantha Kumar, principal of Jain International School, Maliwada, said these schools were simply following the official orders from the Education department by permitting classroom teaching. “Like other schools, our school was also shut during most of the period of the pandemic. Since there is no official order about the closure of schools other than the municipal limits, we are conducting offline classes by taking all possible safety measures against,” he said.

When contacted, Nilesh Gatane, the CEO of Aurangabad Zilla Parishad, the official call on the functioning of schools will be taken in near future depending upon the increase in the number of Covid cases.

“The benchmark survey conducted by authorities to assess learning abilities of students in rural areas of Aurangabad has revealed below-expectation performance by students at large. This fact also needs to be taken into account while taking a call on the closure of schools,” he said.