West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that her government will wait for a few more days to evaluate the COVID-19 situation before deciding to reopen primary schools in the state. "Some caution should be exercised before reopening primary schools as there are warnings of another variant of Coronavirus," she said.
Banerjee said that schools reopened for classes 8 to 12 on February 3, while open-air learning sessions for students up to class 7 started four days later under a project named 'Paray Shikshalay' (education centre at your locality).
"On reopening primary schools, we will wait to see if the new variant is not of much concern. Then only schools can start offline classes for the junior section with students coming on alternate days," she said.
Altogether 31 lakh students had turned up at 75,000 venues across the state on the first day of the Paray Shikshalay programme on Monday. The sessions are being held either on open ground in a locality which can be easily communicable for students or one adjacent to a school having a large number of pupils.