Maharashtra, January 20: Maharashtra School Education Minister Varsha Gaikwad on Thursday announced that schools for classes 1 to 12 will be reopened in Maharashtra for offline classroom education from January 24.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray has approved a proposal to this effect sent to him by the school education department, Moreover, “Written instructions on this will be issued either today or tomorrow,” the school education minister added.
Further, Gaikwad said, “Our SOPs are very strict and clear. We have given four days advance notice to the management of schools to undertake vaccination and sanitisation and for preparation of time-table.”
“Moreover, the timing and other necessary decisions will be taken by the local authorities, such as district collector or municipal commissioner based on the local situations,” he added.
The relaxation is limited to areas where the number of cases is low based on the local Covid-19 situation.
This comes afterwards, several parents, activists in the field as well as teachers had opposed the move to shut the schools, saying it would adversely affect the students as well as after the BMC the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) assessment had indicated that the cases of Omicron infection are not on the rise, and it had said that the curve was flattening.
Schools in Maharashtra were closed in the first week of January due to a spike in the coronavirus cases and in the wake of the emergence of the highly infectious Omicron variant.
The state on Wednesday recorded 43,697 new coronavirus positive cases, 10 per cent more than the previous day, including 214 Omicron infections.
