HYDERABAD: Reopening of schools in Telangana after the Sankranti holidays is doubtful. As the Covid-19 cases are on the rise, the holidays may be extended. Holidays were announced for schools and other educational institutions till January 16 on account of Covid-19 and Sankranti.
Now that the situation has not abated, a high-level meeting of education and health department officials is scheduled on Sunday where they may propose to the government to extend holidays. According to sources, the officials may recommend reverting to online classes as it would be too risky to resume offline classes at least in the next few weeks.
The officials believe that enforcing Covid-19 protocols among students would be very difficult in view of classrooms being too small and the number of students too many. If there were to be offline classes, schools may run with 50 per cent of students and teachers.
According to the School Education Department officials, the department is prepared to hold online classes as the recorded material is available with the department. Not only schools but Intermediate and degree colleges also may start taking online classes from January 17. Several private institutions have already informed the students that online classes will resume from January 17.
The State Health Department recently announced that Omicron may reach a peak in six weeks and from then on there might be a decline which might likely be in the middle of February.