Dr. Randeep Guleria, the Chief Director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has shared his views and opinions on the status of reopening of schools in india during a virtual live session held few days ago.
He said that schools are shut since more then a year due to COVID-19 outbreak. But now as the pandemic situations has began to normalise, we must urgently start planning strategies to reopen schools.
Dr. Guleria added that closed schools has aggressively affected the learning process of students. Especially the marginalized student who can’t afford to attend online classes are left far behind in terms of studies.
In order to cover this gap and being back the conventional methods of education, it is necessary to reopen schools and call the students in physical classes because it the place where childrens learn and grow.
In the opinion of Dr. Guleria, Online education can never match the standards of learning which occurs in classrooms. Schools provide the physical interaction of students with several activities which is a vital process for growth.
The first step towards reopening schools would be to vaccinate childrens against COVID-19. This will be a milestone achievement and it will pave the way to our ultimate aim of reopening schools.
The central government has also earlier said that the reopening of schools will be considered once a major portion of the population has been vaccinated. Although it may take more time then expected.
AIIMS chief director said that the results of second and third phase testing of Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin on the age group of 2 to 18 years will be available by September.
On the basis of examination and study of this results, the government will decide that either the vaccine can be administered to childrens or not and how can it be made available in india.