All was well in Tamil Nadu when the state welcomed the new year, with a dash of hope. COVID cases were reducing and people were getting vaccinated slowly. Schools too reopened for high schoolers. The joy was short-lived. The number of COVID cases spiked with the onset of a rather deadly second wave. As expected, exams were cancelled, schools were closed and the students were back to attending classes online.
But luckily, that wave also came to a close. Tamil Nadu is all set to reopen its schools for students from Classes IX to XII from September 1, 2021, with 50 per cent capacity. While the students will be asked to enter and exit in a staggered manner, the government said that the classrooms will be sanitised and that the teachers will be vaccinated.
Teachers are awaiting the reopening. "This is a welcome move by the government," said PK Ilamaran, President, Tamil Nadu Teachers' Association. "These prolonged online classes have caused a sort of learning paralysis among students. The situation is pitiful among the primary school students, who have even forgotten the alphabet," he says.
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Ilamaran adds that a prolonged closure of schools has even made a lot of children turn to child labour. "Parents do not feel safe to leave their children home when they go out to work. A lot of them have also become child labourers. Owing to this, a large number of students did not turn up to collect their Class X and XII certificates this year. With schools reopening, parents will have a safe space to send their students," he says. At the same time, a survey conducted by the Tamil Nadu Science Forum, earlier this year said that 1 in 10 children dropped out after Class X in the state because they did not know to apply for Class XII online.
Now with the government set on reopening schools, will the parents be scared of their kids contracting COVID? "Not at all," says Ilamaran. "Almost 75 per cent of the teachers in the state have been vaccinated until now. Also, all of us have seen the crowd in Marina Beach last Sunday. I don't think parents who were fine sending their children to the beach will be hesitant about sending them to school," he says.
