Teachers from across Tamil Nadu are relieved as schools reopen for them from August 2, but they all say that schools will feel incomplete without children.
Chennai’s Presidency Girls School headmistress, Rajalaxmi MM said, "I will feel happy only when children are allowed to come to school." She said that almost all teachers from the school are vaccinated. “I asked two teachers not to come to school because of their health conditions, otherwise most of the teaching staff will be joining duty,” she said.
As per the circular released on July 29 by the School Education Commissioner and the Director of Elementary Education, it is the responsibility of the District Educational Officers and Chief Educational Officers to ensure that all safety norms for the prevention of COVID-19 are followed by the teaching staff. Teachers who have pre-existing comorbidities can be exempted by CEOs or DEOs from working-from-school provided they can produce necessary medical documents.
Even as the teachers have been holding online classes from home, she said that the plan is to teach just two subjects for two hours as most students enrolled in the school lack access to digital devices. “Our students come from lower income groups, they have very limited access to phones,” Rajalaxmi said,
Karunai Doss, a math teacher from a government school in Sivakasi and a National Information and Communication Technology Award awardee, said, “We are ready to go to school, there will be computer training in our school for all teachers from August 2.” He added that work from home has been a problem and that teachers will at least save on data packs. Doss teaches Class 9 and 10, something he has been doing for 23 years.
Teachers have been visiting schools in smaller batches at the moment. However, this is to help with admissions and prepare assignments to be sent to students based on video lessons telecast on Kalvi TV.
