Srinagar: Thousands of students returned to classrooms on Monday as schools in Kashmir reopened for classes 9 to 12 after remaining closed for nearly 19 months due to August 05, 2019 developments followed by the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020.
It may be recalled that in Kashmir it was not only Covid-19 that had resulted into the shutting down of schools, the process had started way back.
Post August 05, 2019, when the government of India decided to abrogate Article 370 of Indian constitution and bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories, the schooling came to a halt.
Officially it was resumed few months later but majority of the students stayed away from the schools given the uncertainty of the situation.
So, technically the Kashmiri students attended the schools after a gap of 19 months (including two winter vacations). Over 60 percent attendance was recorded in most government schools but the exact figures would be known after all the records have been tallied, an official of the School Education Department said.
Private schools recorded higher attendance as classrooms were bifurcated to ensure social distancing.
“Our class has a strength of 40 but today there were only 20 students in the room in view of the social distancing necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ahmad Khan, a Class 10 student of a private school.
Only those students were allowed to attend classes who had submitted the written consent of their parents.
Most private schools had asked parents to submit no objection certificates, absolving the management of any blame in case of any health issues arising due to physical classes.
Several schools had also asked students to bring along medical fitness certificates on the first day of school.
According to a government order, schools will reopen for classes 6 to 8 from March 08 and for the remaining classes from March 18.
