Work "Aggressively" on Reopening Schools, Says AIIMS Director

The All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) Director Dr Randeep Guleria has said that the government needs to “aggressively work” on reopening of physical classes in school as several students are out of school and have no access to online classes. Children are suffering when it comes to education, he said.

Schools have been shut down since mid-March 2020 due to the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. While the schools did reopen in a phased manner in the meantime, most of the classes have been held digitally since. Students have had to rely on online classes to complete the syllabus. Some schools also announced early summer breaks too, hence causing disruption in the academic calendar too.

“I personally feel that we should aggressively work on opening schools because it has really affected the young generation in terms of knowledge and especially the marginalised ones who can’t go for online classes, they are suffering,” Guleria told news agency ANI.

While Guleria is of the opinion that schools need to work on reopening as students are affected in terms of education, NITI Aayog member Dr Vinod Kumar Paul said earlier that the decision on reopening of educational institutes, especially schools should be taken “cautiously” as these are places have large gathering and children are bound to get affected by the virus.

He also said that due to the unpredictable situation, taking a decision reopening of schools is not easy adding that if the lockdown restrictions are eased in the states and schools are reopened, students have a risk of getting infected. States like Karnataka is looking to vaccinate degree college students and is considering the reopening of colleges and schools in the state phase-wise manner, however, the state government had said that vaccinating children below 18 years is still under trial and hence a formal decision is yet to be taken.

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