Reopening of Telangana schools from Sept 1 except govt residential schools

: The Telangana High Court on Tuesday permitted reopening of schools from September 1 while staying the physical reopening (starting of offline classes) of government residential schools. The High Court also directed that no child studying in any class shall be compelled by any school management to physically attend offline classes, if his or her parent is not inclined to send the child to school. A bench, comprising Telangana High Court Acting Chief Justice M S Ramachandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar, issued a series of directions to the government while hearing a PIL which challenged the government's decision to reopen schools from September 1 in physical mode. On August 23, the Telangana government decided to reopen all private and government educational institutions (resume physical classes) in the state from September 1 by following various (COVID-19 norms) precautionary measures. The High Court in its directions on Tuesday said all schools other than Government Residential Schools, Social Welfare Schools and Tribal welfare Schools with hostel facilities are permitted to open (starting of offline classes) from September 1.

The stay will be in place for four weeks on such schools and the government was asked to file a counter affidavit and inform the court on the number of Government and Social Welfare Schools in the state and how many of them are with hostels.

The Court while posting the matter to October 4 directed authorities to inform it on the measures taken on following COVID-19 norms and to ensure safety. The government was also asked to inform the court on the number of beds available to treat children in each district in the government/private hospitals as on August 31, 2021 to treat infections for children, if they occur. "It is left open to school management to have either only offline or only online or both offline and online classes," the Court said. The High Court further directed authorites to frame SOPs to be followed by all school managements conducting classes offline within one week (from the date of opening of school ie September 1). No private school management shall be subjected to any penal consequences of any nature, the Court said, adding no school-going child admitted in any private or government school or his/her parent shall be subjected to any penalty of any nature by the school to which he/ she is admitted if the child does not attend school for offline classes. Any undertaking obtained from parents by any school management absolving the school management of any liability if the child gets infected with virus, while in school, shall not have any legal effect, it said.