Day 2: Confidence boosted, more kids return to schools

New Delhi: The second day of the reopening of schools saw a larger turnout than Monday with students becoming more confident after seeing the response of their classmates. According to sources in the Directorate of Education, the attendance across government schools on Tuesday was 40%.
Many schools that are yet to reopen have been sent the consent form by a lot of parents. The schools believe that the number of forms will increase manifold within the next few days.
Ashok Pandey, director of Ahlcon group of schools, said, “We have started receiving the consent forms that we sent to parents for sending their wards to school. So far, we have got a good response with 60-70% parents consenting to their children being a part of the physical mode of teaching. Since we have exams going on, classes will begin from February 27.”
The Indian School principal Tania Joshi said, “We have got almost 50% consent forms from parents of science students. Since we will start our classes from Thursday, there is a likelihood that more consent forms will come by then.”
She added that most students may decide to come after seeing the response of their classmates and in schools across the city. “Parents will also start to feel more confident with these developments. We have already reached out to them about this,” said Joshi.
At Mount Abu Public School in Rohini, one of the schools that reopened on the first day, principal Jyoti Arora informed that there was an increase in attendance of Class X students on Tuesday.
“The number of Class XII students, however, is still the same. We have told our teachers to connect with parents and tell them the importance of sending children to school and the precautions and SOPs being taken by us. With each passing day, the number of students will increase as more parents will be encouraged by the safety precautions in place,” added Arora.