Telangana: Parents welcome government move to close schools

Musheerabad: The school parents' association which until recently was up in arms against the State government, on Wednesday, welcomed its decision to close educational institutions due to rising Covid-19 cases.

But, it cautioned authorities not to take such a hasty decision while re-opening them in the wake of Covid second wave threat to the State.

Parents said that the government should not have first of all succumbed to the pressure exerted by private educational institutions by putting children at risk just for electoral expediency.

Some parents noted even though there is a tremendous difference between online learning and physical classroom learning, nothing is important than safety of children.

Speaking to The Hans India, V Sharma of Indian Parents Association said: "This particular decision has been taken at the right time by the State government. While we are happy over the decision of closure of schools, this decision was unwarranted since the schools shouldn't have been opened. They made a decision on re-opening of schools when parents cautioned them not to resume physical classes. We are at the end of the academic year. The entire year has been more or less a washout. At this juncture, things were stable, schools reopened as the cases spiked in the State. The children are asymptomatic super spreaders as per the studies done. Each child has the capability to spread the virus to 30-35 people in a single day. It was not a wise decision from government to re-open educational institutions."

"The decision was earlier taken by the State to re-open schools to favour managements to collect hefty fees. To benefit the constituencies, they reopened classes 6 to 8. Now the State government decision makes sense not to send children as there is limited infrastructure at schools to have social distancing and other hygiene protocols. Their immune systems are sensitive as we could see many cases reported from schools and hostels in a month." Said Vani, whose son studies in Class 10.

Seema Agarwal, a member of Hyderabad School Parents' Association, who welcomed the decision of the government said, "As the cases increase in the State and across the country, this is a sensible decision. We could have also avoided the cases in schools, colleges and hostels across the State. And we request the government not to hike fees for the academic year 2021-22 as many schools have increased the fee by 20 per cent."