BHUBANESWAR: As school reopening is being strongly advocated after almost two years of Covid-induced disruption, low students’ turn out in Bhubaneswar’s private schools which once demanded resumption of teaching in offline mode at the earliest has come as a surprise. Interestingly, government schools are recording 40 to 50 per cent (pc) attendance, while turnout of students in some of the highly-rated private schools has remained as low as 10 pc.
Many parents who strongly back offline education say schools are insisting on online classes for reasons best known to them whereas managements of many schools claim that parents are reluctant to send their wards to campus for offline classes.
The attendance of government-run Capital High School at Unit-III, where the combined student strength for Class VIII, IX and X is around 900, physical attendance in classes has remained around 45 pc and continues to increase. School authorities said around 48 pc students attended classes in physical mode at Class VIII level on Thursday. School and Mass Education department sources said the overall attendance of government schools has also remained over 60 pc across the State.
However, the picture of private schools is completely different. Officials of KIIT International School, SAI International School, DAV Chandrasekharpur and St Xavier’s High School, Kedargouri said offline classes have resumed for Class VIII onwards from February 7 but the attendance of the students has remained extremely low.
“Our attendance for offline classes is in the range of 20 pc to 25 pc,” said an official from SAI International. The response from other schools was similar. In St Xavier’s School at Kedargouri, officials said out of around 40-45 students in each section at Class VIII and IX level, only 5 to 6 students are turning up for physical classes. Some of the private schools, meanwhile, are planning to resume classes in physical mode from the 2022-23 academic session.
All this defeats the entire purpose of reopening schools while many private schools are sending confusing signals to parents using government advisory. “There is notice for class resumption and examination for Class IX and XII but none for Class VIII students,” claimed a parent of a private school that offers international board. Others also say that though schools put out ambiguous notices, transport systems have not been activated.
This comes at a time when Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged all to send kids to campuses without fear. The State government’s decision to postpone physical classes for Class I-VII till February 28 has only added to the confusion.
The notice of the government to a few of these schools asking students to appear for examinations in offline mode has messed up things further.An official from Loyola School, Bhubaneswar said many parents were reluctant to send their children to attend classes in offline mode during previous Covid outbreak and taking it into account, they decided to continue with online classes.
She, however, admitted that examinations scheduled to be held in coming weeks and difficulties faced by teachers in conducting classes in hybrid mode are other reasons they are sticking to online classes.