Mita Mukherjee

Schools and colleges in West Bengal will reopen for physical classes on November 16, chief minister Mamata Banerjee announced on Monday. In-person classes will initially start for classes IX to XII in all state-aided and private schools, sources in the state school education department said.

The physical classes for the students of the remaining classes are likely to be resumed in a phased manner, the sources said. The chief minister today directed the state chief secretary HK Dwivedi to take necessary measures to enable the schools to start offline teaching from November 16.

After attending an administrative review meeting at Siliguri in North Bengal today, CM asked the chief secretary to ensure that all repair works, cleaning and sanitization of the schools are complete before they reopen.

The CM had earlier said in September that the government would reopen educational institutions in Bengal after the festive season, provided the Covid-19 situation remained under control.

The state government had accordingly directed all schools to start the preparations for making the schools ready for conducting the physical classes after the Durga Puja holidays.

A directive was recently sent to all government and private schools asking them to complete the preparatory work by October end. Senior officials of the state school education department held a virtual meeting with the district inspectors of schools of all the districts last Saturday where they were instructed to complete the first round of cleaning and sanitization of the campuses by October 29.

Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) which together have nearly 660 plus affiliated schools in Bengal will be conducting their first semester exams for classes X and XII in offline mode in the last two weeks of November.

The CISCE and CBSE affiliated schools were anxiously waiting for an official notification from the state government regarding the reopening of schools for on-campus classes. The CM’s announcement today brought relief to them, principals of several schools said.

Education department officials said the physical classes will have to be held adhering to all Covid-19 protocols.

According to heads of many private schools, the preparations to reopen the campuses for the offline classes were almost complete in their institutions. But they were unable to ask the students to attend the schools as there was no government order on reopening the campuses.

Also read: Schools reopen for class 1 to 5 students in Karnataka