School Reopens : Concerns and Worries

During the March month of this year, the government was forced by the pandemic condition due to Covid 19, to close all schools, colleges, universities and all kinds of educational institutions for almost an indefinite period of time.

Now after almost six months, the Covid situation is still not too much good and hopeful. The only positive point is perhaps the death percentage in our country. Death percentage due to Covid 19 is among the lowest in the world and most of the cases are either with very low intensity or asymptomatic. Cases with low intensity symptoms have a very hopeful rate of recovery. This one big ray of hope perhaps the main driving force of our unlocking endeavours after months of total lockdown.

So as the country is going through the Unlock 4.0 processes, the government announced partial opening of schools from 21st September, 2020. But there are certain guidelines, one SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for the total process of partial reopening of schools.

Within the guidelines, it says that only senior students of class 9 to 12 can be allowed to attend classes at school and that also on a voluntary basis. That is if any student feels any need of help or assistance like doubt clearing from teachers then he can come to school at his own will but that cannot be done mandatory right now. The class hours are also recommended to be not more than four hours in total per day.

There are also mandatory guidelines for strict maintenance of social distancing, personal hygiene and sanitization, everyday compulsory thermal checking for every student, strict sitting arrangements as per social distancing norms and so on.
Even vehicles and school buses are also to be parked in marked zones, maintaining proper norms, they are also to be sanitized daily.

Students are expected to welcome the decision of partial reopening of the schools after so many months of lockdown closure. Afterall a process of reopening was so very necessary for the education sector to survive the prolonged lockdown. And what is partial today, tomorrow it can be total and there will arise the hope of gradual normalization. But there can be causes for the students to be unable to attend the partial classes just right now. So what can be the possible factor among students that can prevent current un-lockdown processes of schools?

Academic Reasons

Many urban and some rural students who are already getting online classes through the period of lockdown, can have very little interest in this partial reopening of classes just for doubt clearance on the subject. They can find the whole arrangement of going to the school just for doubt clearance class to be boring and tiresome and quite not needed as they can easily get doubts cleared and other queries asked and answered through the different online mode of communication with respective teachers.

But to the huge population of those students who are less expected to be studying through online mode, this reopening can be a very important decision that will eventually restart their hustles of studies and education again after many months.

Societal Reasons

For most of the students the school is a great place for social interactions and making friends. Throughout this long lockdown, they are away from their friends and peers, and they are also eager to meet them again. But partial reopening of schools will not be that convenient for that purpose. Moreover strict social distancing norms and other factors as stated in the government directed SOP can make things more uncomfortable for students. This can prevent students’ interest to attend the reopened school. And as the classes are totally optional and voluntary in nature so there cannot be any pressure on students to attend the classes.

Health Reasons

Health is perhaps the biggest reason of today for students to stay away from school classes. Nobody wants to fall sick, everybody wants to stay away from Covid 19.

Its true that as per current trend of Covid 19 disease, most of the senior students of class 9 to 12 will most probably acquire either the asymptomatic form or the low intensity form (with mild symptoms curable at home quarantine and medications) of the disease. But still this virus and this disease already claimed more than a million lives in the last few months and in India only the death toll currently reads more than a lakh. And countries like the US and UK are still fighting hard against the outbreaks there. And also no one is still sure about the status of the vaccine for this disease. We don’t have any clue to questions like when the vaccine is going to appear in the market or whether the vaccine will become really successful to eradicate this disease.

Health issues of teachers will be a more serious question than even the senior students of class 9 to 12. As we can easily imagine, teachers are of many different age groups, and many of them are expected to be above 40 or even 50. Now these age groups are more vulnerable to the virus of Covid 19. So we cannot expect that if a teacher of age 50 or 55 gets infected then for him or her the disease is going to be asymptomatic or less intense. Many teachers already have underlying health issues right from their 30s or 40s. So those cases are not going to be as easy as it seems.

This factor can make teachers shaky and nervous to join school for regular classes and most truly this factor can become a boomerang to our education system as there is a great risk of losing many valuable teachers.

The next entity in question is school. Schools have two main sectors of concern viz. finance and the infrastructure and staff.

Financial Problems of Schools Reopening After Covid 19 Lockdown

We can easily understand that most of the schools are in a very bad financial condition due to months of closure. Government and government sponsored schools are still doing better but private sector schools are facing a very tough time to survive. Fees collection in most cases are either totally or partially stopped for many schools. Though big schools are still fighting hard, many small to medium size schools are already closed and sold out.

Schools in many urban areas are taking regular online classes for its students, thus that have kept fees collection for them smooth and easier. But still due to economic retardation, and jobless situations many guardians failed to keep paying regular fees.

This partial opening of schools though paving a broader way for better fees collection and economic movements, but there are some doubtful issues as well.

As the schools will not be running regular normal class periods and also the attendance is not expected to be good at all, so the fees collection issue remains as a question. But the expenses are most expected to shoot much higher than that used to be before the lockdown.

One hand schools have all existing expenditures for standard operations, like staff and teachers’ salary, property rents (wherever applicable), infrastructure maintenance, and so on. Upon these standard expenses, a new version of expense will climb, which I suppose I can call by the name of “Covid 19 Overheads”.

Sanitization of premises and people are not going to be a cheap deal. It will be very difficult to enforce and ensure social distancing norms and sanitization norms among young students. This would invariably require more staff strength if to be done properly and sincerely.

Many teachers are already taking regular online classes, and putting extra burden of partial school classes on them may become a tough and controversial issue.

So these and more are going to put schools into a lot of financial stress which can result in either temporary or in some cases even total closure of schools. And as we have a huge and ever-increasing population, so closure of more and more schools will mean students will have tough time to get into school admissions in future.

Infrastructure and Staff Problems of Schools Reopening After Covid 19 Lockdown

As I have already said that in order to properly implement social distancing, sanitization of hand and surroundings, thermal screening and other aspects of the school reopening SOP from the government, schools are expected to face great problems. This tough task may not be much easily possible by the existing staff strengths. In that case schools need to recruit more staff for handling Covid 19 SOP procedures which is sure to burn their pockets even more.

And there arises a very tricky condition also with all these, and that is chances of spreading of Covid 19 is directly proportional to the number of interactions and number of people. So as the staff will increase and if the student attendance also increases with that then with that we can expect an increase in Covid 19 cases.

Now hence another question arises, if a school face quite a number of Covid 19 cases then what will be the next step? Stop the school classes and quarantine all the attending staff and students? Or they will be allowed to spread the disease even more around them and also take the same to their home? I do not know the answers….do you?

Parents nowadays are very worried about the health of their child. No parents want or like to see their child is getting Covid affected from anywhere. If they send their child in school for classes, then undoubtedly the chances of getting affected increases for the student. So most concerned parents would like the current trends of online classes till a reliable vaccine of Covid 19 becomes accessible in the market.

In many houses, there are elder people and very young people or infants as well. As of now, it is found and believed from numerous case studies that Covid 19 is more dangerous for older people and too young children and infants. And the most vulnerable are perhaps older people as they usually have one or more existing medical issues already.

No conscious parent or guardian would like to see Covid 19 enter their home through their student child. They obviously want to keep older family members as safe as possible until the vaccine releases. The senior students of class 9 to 12 are expected to have enough immune power to make the Covid 19 asymptomatic in their body, but they can become worst carrier. They can bring that menace right inside their home to olders and infants. Can one or two academic years be more important than the life of an old family member or an infant?