There is this debate going on about re-opening schools. Everyone has an opinion about it. There was a news item carried by local press in Srinagar that the administration is planning to re-open schools in Kashmir in a phased manner wherein social distancing would be taken care of. The plan seems to be that on alternative days two to three groups of students can attend classes so that there is ample space in classrooms for students to sit a considerable distance apart from each other.
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So far so good but is it practicable? And more importantly is it safe? At such a young age how would one ensure that students would not like to mingle with each other or play games involving physical contact. With our limited resources, how would school administrations be able to monitor the temperatures of students? And one more important thing which is the very nature of this virus is that it can linger on the wooden or plastic surfaces for many days thus making all those vulnerable to infection who come in contact with them..
We also need to look into one more important aspect of it. Have the parents been taken into consideration on this? The safety of the children is paramount and cannot be compromised under any circumstances. When governments across the globe have taken a resolute decision not to open schools till September, why this urge to open them in our union territory?
At a time when the number of positive cases for Covid-19 is increasing at a phenomenal speed it is not the wisest of decisions to throw open schools in a matter of days from now. We want the government to seriously revisit this decision. We have to be very calibrated in our actions, and more so with our decisions.
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