BHUBANESWAR: School campuses across the state will finally be filled with kids and the noise after two long years as physical classes for students from Class I to V will commence from Monday.
The Odisha State Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) has asked schools to put all safety measures in place and follow the instruction of the School and Mass Education (SME) department issued recently to offer a stress free, enjoyable learning environment to the students.
On Saturday, parent-teacher meetings were organised in all government and government-aided schools to sensitise parents about measures put in place on campuses. These meetings were attended by 6.8 lakh parents.
Apart from primary students, students of Class VI and VII at the upper primary level will also attend classes in physical mode from Monday after a gap of two months. Though the government had allowed offline classes for the upper primary level from November 15 last year, it was scrapped from January 7 following the outbreak of the third wave of the pandemic.
Schools were reopened again for the primary and upper primary classes from February 14. However, the state government asked the students to attend classes from February 28 in view of the panchayat elections.
As per the schedule prepared by the SME department, the class timing for all students at primary and upper primary level from Class I to VII will be 10 am to 1 pm.
To refamiliarise students with offline classes, schools for the first week will carry out a rapport building exercise that will include a number of activities including open discussions for sharing of good memories during Covid pandemic, hobbies, word puzzles, story-telling, painting, clay modelling, crafts, and other co-curricular activities.
Baseline assessment of children from Class I to V will be done in Odia, Math, and English between March 9 and 11 to evaluate the learning status of the children.