As Mumbai sees a downturn in COVID cases, the city corporation has decided to reopen schools on January 27, the Indian Express reported. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal, on January 18, reportedly said, “We are planning to reopen schools on January 27.”
Chahal further told the daily the third wave peaked around January 10 and over the last week the city has reported a sharp fall in daily cases. “We expect the numbers to come down to levels of 1,000-2,000 by January 26, and we are now planning to reopen schools by January 27,” said Chahal.
The BMC Commissioner's statement came after a parent's association in Mumbai, along with the Maharashtra English School Trustees Association, wrote an open letter to him and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray seeking the reopening of schools in the city by January 24.
However, one cannot definitely say if Chahal's statement came because of the open letter. Schools across the state have been shut in the state till February 15. The Times of India reported that the state cabinet is likely to a decision on reopening schools across Maharashtra in its next meeting on Thursday.
Earlier this week, the World Bank's Global Education Director Jaime Saavedra had made the headlines where he criticised the closure of schools by governments across the country and elsewhere. Saavedra and his team have been tracking the impact of COVID-19 on the education sector. "There is no relationship between opening schools and the spread of the Coronavirus. There is no evidence linking the two and there is no justification now to keep the schools closed. Even if there are new waves of COVID-19, closing schools should be the last resort," Saavedra told PTI in an interview from Washington.
For the last several months, UNICEF has been repeatedly cautioning world leaders not to put schools on lockdown as the adverse impact of such decisions on learning outcomes is severe. In a statement released in July last year, UNICEF said, "It’s been 18 months since the COVID-19 outbreak started and education for millions of children is still disrupted. As of today, primary and secondary schools are shuttered in 19 countries, affecting over 156 million students. This should not go on. Schools should be the last to close and the first to reopen.
