Visakhapatnam: Parents unprepared to send their wards to school

Visakhapatnam: Unsure of the precautionary measures taken by the educational institutions, most parents are not keen on sending their children to school.

As some of the schools brace for reopening class VIII from Monday, parents are still uncertain about allowing their wards to attend physical classes like earlier.

Expressing their concerns over recommencement of classes, a majority of parents considers it unsafe to send their wards to educational institutions, especially when the threat of a second wave of coronavirus is looming large.

With teachers and students tested positive for Covid-19 after reopening of schools in parts of Andhra Pradesh, including Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and Guntur, parents say that they are not prepared to risk their children's life. "As parents, we decided against sending our kids to school even if it means for alternate days.

Currently, we are happy with the online classes. Both my daughters have been enrolled in an educational App. This apart, we are allowing them to attend music classes physically along with a small group of students. But when it comes to sending them to school, we are not prepared for it yet," says Aditya Kandarpa, a parent.

Sharing similar views, Bharat Meda, employed at Walmart Global Tech, India, as senior manager, says, "As soon as we received an alert from our kids' school that we need to submit a consent letter to the school management, there was a long discussion in the parents' WhatsApp group whether to send our children to school or not. Given the ongoing pandemic situation, we took a collective decision not to send them now."

However, a section of parents observes that absence of schools has a negative impact on children.

"Attending physical classes make a lot of difference, especially for higher class students. Being at home all the time plus prolonged screen time eventually make them feel suffocated at the end of the day. We never know when the situation returns to normalcy and in such a scenario, allowing kids to school will help them learn to deal with difficult times and cope with challenges," opines M Hari, another parent.

Stressing on the maintenance of Covid-19 protocol, District Educational Officer B Lingeswara Reddy says that teachers will be chipped in to build awareness about maintaining hand hygiene and other safety protocols among students.

Along with following safety measures, Deputy DEO (GVMC) D Srinivas says that 16 students will be accommodated in each class on alternate days and students will undergo coronavirus tests in 27 municipal high schools.

Even if sanitisation measures are in place at schools, some of the parents say they are not sure whether their children will continue to wear masks and maintain social distancing on the campus.