Kerala mulls free distribution of homeopathic tablets ahead of schools reopening 

With the Kerala government deciding to reopen all the schools in the state from November 1, it is thinking of distributing free homeopathic preventive tablets before that as a precautionary measure as COVID continues to rage in the state.

Educational institutions in the state closed in the third week of March 2020. The final year classes in colleges are all set to resume from next week.

The daily COVID positive cases in Kerala appear to have increased yet again, after 12,161 people turned positive on Wednesday after 90,394 samples were tested in the past 24 hours, while the daily test positivity rate also went up to 13.45 per cent.

The plan to distribute preventive tablets has been discussed between Education Minister V Sivankutty and Health Minister Veena George.

"More discussions on this will be there and we are confident of ensuring that we will be able to provide these preventive tablets to all our school children before they come to the school. These tablets will be provided free of cost to the children at their homes," said Sivankutty.

The curriculum for study is also getting ready and in principle it has been decided that in the initial weeks of opening there will be no uniform and attendance.

The curriculum for study in the first few weeks will be more of a welcoming back and would centre around well being and such issues, with the regular curriculum being kept in abeyance for a while.

More decisions on the exact nature of classes will be made by an experts committee which is preparing the road map for it. Initially there will be only 25 per cent student strength in a class, with students coming to school in turns.

Guidelines are also being readied on how many children can travel in a school bus and other vehicles.