Mita Mukherjee

The West Bengal government has asked heads of all schools, colleges and universities in the state to submit daily reports of Covid positive cases in their institutions to the education department.

 Every institution has been issued a form where the heads have been directed to provide details like whether a student, teacher, the non-teaching employees have been infected, the date they were tested positive, whether the infected persons attended the institutions after the occurrence of symptoms and whether the institutions have sanitized the places where the affected persons came in contact.  The reports will have to be submitted every day by 4 pm from Friday.

The government will use the data to monitor the rate of infection on the campuses before it takes a decision on shutting down the institutions in the wake of a fresh surge in Covid-19 cases in the state.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on December 29 had asked concerned officials to review the Covid-19 situation in the state and she had hinted that schools, colleges and universities might be shut down if the situation demanded.

The chief minister, however, had later clarified: “ I have not said that we are shutting down schools and colleges. We will review the situation and then make the decision on whether schools and colleges need to be shut down for some more time.”

An official of the education department said, schools, colleges and universities have started sending the information sought from them regarding the Covid positive incidences on the campuses.

“ We will examine the figures and soon take a call on whether we need to shut down the schools again or not,”  the official said.

The chief minister is likely to meet education department officials, students, teachers of schools, colleges and universities on Monday to discuss various education-related issues in the state.   

 Educational institutions in Bengal had reopened on November 16 for offline classes after the campuses remained closed for over 20 months.

Also read: Maharashtra: Schools likely to shut if Omicron cases continue to rise