Dipta Joshi

The Maharashtra government has allowed schools across the state to hold physical classes from Monday, January 24. The decision is applicable to all pre-primary and classes I-XII, announced the state’s education minister, Varsha Gaikwad, after the state cabinet held its meeting this morning.

“The education department’s proposal to reopen schools from Monday was already with the government but we were awaiting a nod from chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray on the same. Schools in areas with less or negligible cases of COVID infections can resume physical classes for classes I-XII as well as pre-primary. Decisions to close schools if needed will be taken by the local administration. All schools will be expected to strictly follow the COVID-related protocols and the state-issued standard operating procedures (SOPs),” said Gaikwad.  

In view of the rising COVID cases in the state, the state government ordered (on January 8) closure of schools and colleges across the state until February 15. However, it (government) faced growing pressure to reopen schools at the earliest since educators, school managements and parents opposed school closures even as malls and theatres etc. in the state remained open.

Educators and parents raised concerns about the huge learning loss taking place due to school closures for over 700 days in the past two years. There was also a demand that decisions regarding school and college closures be taken by the local administration after taking into consideration the on-ground COVID infection cases. Earlier, the state government’s January 8 order shut educational institutions irrespective of the fact that many rural and even urban areas recorded low or negligible numbers of COVID or Omicron patients.

Challenging the government’s diktat, 80 percent rural budget private English schools associated with the Aurangabad-based Maharashtra English School Trustees Association (MESTA) (estb.2014) held offline classes on Monday, January 17. MESTA, which has 18,000 school trustees as its members, had issued a veiled threat to the government (January 13) to reopen schools January 17. MESTA’s member schools held physical classes while following COVID protocols with only 50 percent of its students attending school.

Ironically, Bacchu Kadu, Maharashtra’s minister of state for education had supported parent’s demands for reopening of schools and dismissed the need to take action against these schools since parents had no objection to their wards attending physical schools. The state’s health minister, Rajesh Tope and Supriya Sule of the state’s ruling Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) too met with MESTA officials to discuss school reopening in the state.

Aligning with MESTA, the Parents Association of Mumbai 2021, a 1000 plus Mumbai-based community of parents, teachers and schools members had also threatened protests against school closures in Mumbai beyond January 24.

In a letter dated January 17 addressed to the state’s chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray and Mumbai city’s municipal commissioner, Iqbal Chahal, the Parents Association of Mumbai 2021 stated, “While education should be an essential service like it is in other countries around the world, it has been more than distressing for citizens to see no importance given to education and children in Mumbai and Maharashtra.”

The metropolis which reported the highest number of infected persons in the state (20,971 on January 7), has witnessed the plateauing of the third wave with daily COVID cases dropping to 6,032 on Wednesday (January 19). Maharashtra reported a total of 43,697 cases of which 214 patients were infected with the Omicron variant. Of the total Omicron cases reported, 31 cases were from Mumbai. 

Also Read: Maharashtra: MESTA schools to reopen from January 17 onwards