It’s back to school: Several civic school students are out of town

A student bows as she enters Balmohan Vidyamandir, Dadar, on Day 1 of reopening on Monday. Pic/Ashish Raje

The numbers show that there exists a certain amount of anxiety among parents as well as schools, even as they are allowed to reopen now. While many did reopen, several others have decided to wait and watch due to multiple reasons starting from ongoing exams, inadequate parents' consent to the requirement of more time to make preparation for safe reopening as the final go-ahead by the BMC came just four days before the reopening date, which included a weekend.

Ramesh Kale, the bell keeper at Balmohan. Pic/Ashish Raje

As per BMC's education department, the civic body has 69,523 students in 755 schools having classes for Std VIII and above. Of these, 30,250 students showed up, which is 43.5 per cent of the total numbers. "The most important to note here is that many students may be out of town. After the final decision on reopening, parents were spoken to by teachers regarding consent. While most of them showed consent, several pointed out that they are out of the city currently and will take time to be back. Unlike, private schools, low parents' consent is not really a reason for low attendance at BMC Schools as here parents were looking forward to the restart of schools," said a BMC education official.

Parents see off their children at Shatabdi Sohala Sahakar School in Chembur. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

In Thane district, of 2,672 schools in rural and city areas, 1,931 held physical classes. Of the 4,31,010 students in these schools, 1,93,597 attended in-person classes on Monday. The education department did not have Mumbai district figures till late in the evening as the work of collating the data continued.

An in-person class in progress at Dyanshwar Vidyalay, Wadala. Pic/Ashish Raje

However, if schools across the city are to be believed, the attendance on day one is not really an indication as all want to wait and watch for a few days. "We are hopeful that the numbers will increase in the coming few days as more students and parents will see through the experiences of their peers. Also, some parents just want to wait and see how reopening unfolds," shared a school principal requesting anonymity. Explaining how some schools are still waiting to reopen, a school principal shared, "We have yet not reopened as we await parents' consent. It should be adequate enough to actually reopen the school, otherwise it would be a difficult task for the school to run a hybrid mode of learning as it involves a lot of expenditure including extra efforts by the staff."

755
No. of BMC schools with classes for Std VIII and above