Maharashtra: 85 per cent of schools resume classes

With classes resuming for standard 5^th to 8^th in most of the districts in Maharashtra, sources say that about 85 per cent of the schools have resumed classes.

Moreover, on the first day, the attendance of the students was about 30 per cent. However, schools in some parts of the state, including Mumbai city, suburbs and Pune, have not yet started. After giving permission to start classes 9^th to 12^th in the state from November 23, in the second phase, classes for standard 5^th to 8^th were started from January 27. The decision to resume school was given by the local administration. Accordingly, many Zilla Parishad schools were started in most of the districts.

Meanwhile, schools have resumed mainly in rural areas. Classes 5^th to 8^th have resumed with a total number of 28,473 schools in the state. However, student attendance is reportedly higher in rural areas than in urban areas.

Moreover, 650 teachers and teaching staff were required to conduct a test for COVID-19 before resuming school. However, so far, many teachers and staff in the district where the schools have resumed operations have not been able to undergo the test for the coronavirus. Out of 1,45,067 teachers teaching in standard 5^th to 8^th, 97,223 teachers were tested. Out of them, 493 teachers were found to be infected with COVID-19. Out of the total 28 thousand 28 non-teaching staff, 21,213 staff were tested, out of which 161 employees have been infected.

On the other hand, according to the information received, schools have resumed in the districts of Nagar, Akola, Amravati, Aurangabad, Bhandara, Chandrapur, Dhule, Gadchiroli, Gondia, Hingoli, Jalna, Nagpur, Nanded, Nashik, Palghar, Satara, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Sindhudurg, Wardha, Yavatmal, Solapur, Pune and Thane. Of these, all the schools in Chandrapur are 100 per cent operational.