After so long time schools and colleges are reopening or trying to reopen at least partially. The Government of India passed a directive and SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for partial reopening of schools from 21, September 2020.
Some state governments are also inclined to reopen schools at least as a demo mode, but some states are still skeptical about reopening schools and its result. Perhaps they are trying to wait for the possible release of a successful vaccine of Covid 19.
Though opening schools at this stage of the Covid 19 pandemic is quite risky and a bit adventurous but it is also true that it is very important to reopen education institutions as soon as possible. It’s been almost six months, all educational institutions and organizations are in total lockdown for containing the pandemic. Students’ education and in many cases psychological growth is under a great unstable and uncertain situation. Specially small students of lower classes in the K-12 class category of school education are the most affected.
So if reopening the schools becomes an option hard to avoid then we have to take extreme care to protect the students as well as teachers and other staff. The government of India issued a pretty detailed SOP regarding practice and the process of every possible step can be taken to keep everybody away from the disease. And of course as the SOP is against COV-SARS2 virus or the Covid 19 virus then implementation of that is not at all supposed to be easy.
In this article, I would like to be little suggestive to schools, students, teachers as well as parents and guardians about how to maintain optimum if not maximum protection against the Covid 19 pandemic in schools as the partial reopening process is on. The main source of guidelines are the SOP on reopening schools released by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (The Government Of India), WHO guidelines and UNICEF guidelines regarding handling and containing Covid 19 pandemic.
Covid 19 Prevention Suggestions for Schools
The document suggests about optimum 6 feet distance maintenance between any two students or persons in the school premises. This is very essential and fundamental for protection from and prevention of more cases of Covid 19.
But the main problem can be the age and immaturity of students. Teachers and other staff are still expected to follow the directives to a far better degree. But I have much doubt about the students. Yes it is true that some students will be quite intelligent and mature and they will show much sensibility and responsibility towards the directives. But as the students are from class 9 to 12, it is hard to expect that the majority of them will belong to that responsible type. Instead I fear the opposite. Perhaps the minority will be intelligent enough and responsible and the majority of the students will have the tendency to break the rules or not follow the directives properly. Thus if such happens then it will be a very hard time to protect our students and teachers from a very major outbreak of Covid 19.
Schools can recruit and use more manpower to monitor over students for rigidly enforcing the social distancing rules among them. But that is sure to be a great economic burden for the school in these days of very bad business and transactions. Moreover, if student attendance becomes better, then the number of surveillance staff needed to do the job of enforcement will increase radically. But the requirement of more staff will become a major economic challenge for the school management. Thus it is bound to make the process either faulty or infeasible economically. So the schools need to plan and implement more effective and economic processes that can really sustain for long and protect from Covid 19.
Some additional staff are of course required beside the regular team of teaching and non-teaching staff. But that will be far from sufficient in most usual cases. So one way of monitoring can be CCTV cameras outside and inside of classrooms. And students need to be reminded and cautioned that school management will be placing more staff for surveillance by the camera, and any student(s) found to break the minimum social distancing rules will be show-caused and punished if required. And only punishment would not do it all. There has to be rewards also.
Rewards can be like internal assessment on social distancing norms and students will be credited some marks in their exams for the same. It will create a project-like feeling for the implementation of social distancing norms to the students. And if students take that as a project with internal assessment credits then things can become much easier for school management and teachers.
Another good step can be taken to minimize surveillance team overheads for schools. I mean, why an external surveillance team….the students themselves can become a good surveillance team. Selected serious and sincere students can be trained to protect other students from the disease. They should be made to understand and deeply realize that their one responsible deed can save their friends’ from sufferings and death. And one mistake can claim lives, one or more. Thus every school can form their own Covid 19 deterrence team or even can name them as Covid 19 Army! The name is ornamental of course, but can bring a good feel and impact of adventure and responsibilities in the young blood of the students. Thus they will find more motivation and inspiration to make a better surveillance and implementation of the government Covid 19 SOP directives for the schools.
Schools can choose to reward and award their student volunteer teams on good performances in many different ways to further give a push of motivation. Good student teacher coordination and understanding is required to make things go good and accurate. And most of all, teachers and school governing bodies should be serious enough and active to make the school and students safe in this day of crisis.
Students have to register their name either by phone or by any other available alternative impersonal method before coming to classes. This will give the school proper control over the number of students appearing for class in a particular day. There should be a cut-off number of students upon which the school would not allow for a particular class in a particular day. This will help in ensuring better implementation of social distancing and other Covid 19 preventing measures within school campus with minimum staff involvement for the purpose.
It is a great responsibility of teachers and school to teach students about their social responsibilities and awareness. The Covid 19 crash course or class should be so designed that every student should get enough equipped not only to save themselves from the disease but also their family and society. Students are the future of our country and society, so they have great responsibility also. And in the process, as teachers will design and deliver the class, they will also become more educated and aware of their responsibilities in fighting against this disease of humanity all around the world. So it will be directly beneficial to both the teachers and the students and indirectly to every family and society as well as the country and humanity as whole.
Those displays and advertisements should be concerning teachers, students and any one who is concerned within the school campus. We know the effect of visual media and advertisements on human psychology. If advertisements can make billions of dollars for industries and people, then why cannot they be used for such a humanitarian crisis? Ideally each and every school should build a Covid 19 fighting team and strategies which will contain teachers, responsible students and even parents and guardians. Covid 19 is not any individual problem but a problem for all, it is a global problem. So why should we have to only look at governments and health departments for the purpose of fighting against the problem? Then what good purposes are schools and colleges for this world and humanity?
Also all should be checked for wearing masks, possessing clean and hygienic handkerchiefs, pen and pencils and any other materials of personal use. No one should share anyones’ things for any purpose whatsoever. Ideally no food or tiffin be allowed in school premises. Classes can be so designed that students will not need to take any food in school. It is best to take food at home.
Individual sanitizers are better not allowed within the school campus because nobody can standardize the quality and effectiveness of individual sanitizers students and teachers will bring from home. Ideally the government and health department can help schools to procure medical grade alcohol sanitizers at the cheapest price. School governing bodies can also find some cheap alcohol sanitizer source at a considerably cheap rate from the market.
Soap is a cheaper alternative, but it is not as effective as an alcohol sanitizer and takes much more time of application. It cannot be expected from impatient young students to give so much time for sanitizing their hands for each and every time. And also the scope of use of soap is much lesser restricted than an alcohol based sanitizer.
Each and every class can have it’s own alcohol sanitizer spray bottle which the teacher and students will use to sanitize their tables, desks and belongings as necessary. Students should be trained for doing so. Teachers and student monitor teams for Covid 19 prevention can oversee and help other students for the purpose. In this way, on one hand school authority can ensure much better Covid 19 prevention at cheapest manpower cost and on the other hand every student would slowly understand, realize and implement their participation in this global crisis of humanity.
But self-monitoring is only then possible when students will be trained to do so. And who will take the responsibility to train students against this crisis if teachers do not? So it is necessary to design and implement a mandatory crash course on Covid 19 prevention and anticipation for every student at every school. Even more, I suggest that ideally there should be some crash courses for teachers also which will be delivered by health workers. Thus the knowhow will be funnelled from the health department to teachers, from teachers to students and from students to every family. This will make our fight against this pandemic crisis much easier and much more effective at a greater social level.
And not only just crash courses, but I would suggest exhaustive assessment for teachers as well as students. And preferably that assessment will not only be theoretical in nature but also practical implementation assessment be included. Ideally every trained teacher and trained student can be asked to submit their implementation log sheets in some online digital format. This will ensure better knowhow transfer and much assured better and effective implementation at all levels.