Assam opens school-colleges, starts constructing 119 MHS in tea garden areas

Guwahati: With limited attendance of students Assam today (November 2, 2020) opens its schools, polytechnics, colleges, private educational institutions, coaching institutes, etc after almost eight months. The the government elementary, secondary and higher education department issued the standard operating procedure for the smooth functioning of State educational institutions amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

The government directive informs that the attendance of students will not be enforced and should be purely based on parental consensus. Simultaneously the online mode of education will continue for students who prefer not to physically attend the classes in the institutions.

Under the guidelines, classes for upper primary, secondary and senior secondary schools for VI, VIII, X and XII standards are scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On the other hand, classes for VII, IX and XI standards are to be conducted on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Fixation of batches for students will be done by the concerned institution as well prepare a daily routine chart for all subjects.

The first batch of students shall come at 8 am and stay up to 12 Noon whereas the second batch shall arrive at 12.30 pm and stay up to 3.30 pm. One class room should not have more than 20 students at a time. Monthly rapid antigen tests (RAT) of all teachers and other staff members should be conducted regularly. At the same time, thermal temperatures check of all students, teachers, and other staff members will have to be done every day. If anyone tested positive for Covid-19, all in the institution premises have to go for screening. Whenever more positive cases are detected it will be closed for a week.

Assam lately reduced the infection rate and maintained the number of active cases below 9,000. In the last 24 hours, it recorded 166 new cases for novel coronavirus infections. Presently the State has 8802 active cases as 196781 individuals were discharged from hospitals after medical interventions. It recorded a total of 206517 positive cases where 931 persons died of Covid-19 aggravated ailments till Sunday night.

Meanwhile, the State government in Dispur has started working for constructions of 119 model high schools (MHS) in various tea plantation dominated areas. The foundation laying ceremony for the schools with modern classrooms, teachers’ restrooms, separate toilets for divyangs, girls and boys among others were held on Sunday at various districts.

CM Sonowal was present at Mekipur tea garden at Nazira of Sivasagar district in eastern Assam. He ceremonially launched the construction of proposed schools at Mekipur and Bamunpukhuri tea garden localities. Union minister Rameshwar Teli and State health, finance, etc minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also laid the foundation stones for such schools at Dibrugarh and Biswanath localities hoping a new dawn to the tea plantation families in different parts of the State.

Speaking on the occasion, Sonowal commented that the tea community is an integral part of greater Assamese society and the community has contributed immensely to Assam’s socio-cultural development. The community, which has embraced Assam and Assamese as their own and assimilated into Assamese society, must be enabled to reap benefits of equal development, he added.

He remarked that earlier governments in Dispur did not take substantial steps for developing the education sector in tea gardens and hence the tea community had lagged behind in social and educational development for all these decades. But since coming to power in 2016, the present BJP led government worked for equal development of all sections following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s motto of ‘sabka sath, sabka bikash, sabka viswas’. Sonowal spoke about the possibility of setting up colleges in the tea gardens in the coming days. He urged the guardians to motivate their children to take advantage of various schemes launched by the government for education. He also highlighted schemes like providing 80 MMUs in tea gardens, construction of roads in more than 800 tea gardens, Chah Bagicha Dhan Puraskar Mela, 25 thousand one time financial assistance to tea community youths for self employment, scholarships to meritorious students, providing free rice in the tea gardens etc.