The Covid-19 pandemic pushed schools across the globe to shut offline practices and get technologically advanced to impart education through the virtual world. As cases started to drop, the state government decided to commence offline classes in a phased manner. However,
Gajera International School in Surat decided to break the government guidelines and put at stake children’s lives.
Gajera International School in Katargam, Surat commenced offline classes for grades six to eight. This comes as a shock as it was only on August 3 when Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama had “announced” that the State government will think about starting the offline classes for these children, post discussions with the core committee.
On finding that Gajera International was running its offline classes, a verbal complaint was lodged with the local police station. And the school shut down only after six to eight police officers intervened to resolve the matter. According to parents, three days ago, they were pressured by administrators to send students to school. And so, students have been going to school for three days now.
The district education officer took cognisance of the situation only after a huge uproar. He sent across four investigation officers to investigate the matter. The guardians have been given the assurance that action will be taken. According to the parents of grade eight students of Gajera International School, the classroom bench, each has three students seated. Instead of 50 per cent capacity, classes are crowded, said a parent, on conditions of anonymity. While the administrators continued to claim that they were only calling students to check their notebooks.
Leading industrialist and founder of the school, Dhirubhai Gajera, who recently joined the BJP, was unavailable for comments, despite repeated attempts.
Class 10 student tests positive for Covid-19
Another case that came to light was of a student studying in grade 10 of Suman Municipality School No. 5 who tested Covid-19 positive. With immediate effect, the teaching work in this school was stopped. Located in the Limbayat area of Surat, as soon as news of a student testing positive reached the parents, the school set up rapid tests for the remaining 46 students and other teaching and non-teaching staff. In the same class
Rapid tests of 46 other students have also been done.
