NO MORE SPLIT SHIFTS FOR PUPILS IN INDIAN SCHOOLS
Afternoon school shifts will end after new Al Ansab school is built
MUSCAT: Afternoon shifts at Indian schools in Oman might soon become a thing of the past, according to the chairman of the Board of Directors of Indian Schools in Oman.
“The Al Awabi School is coming up in Al Ansab, which can accommodate 4,000 children. It will be opened in April 2019. With that we will eliminate the need for afternoon shifts,” said Wilson George.
Currently, more than 46,000 students study in Indian schools across the city, and every year the board receives 5,000 new admission applications.
“The number of students coming into our system increased in recent years. But the infrastruc- ture wasn’t expanding at the same level,” he noted.
Since the Indian School Board has committed to accommodating all students who apply to the Indian schools, they had to begin afternoon shifts.
“We had to go to the shift system to accommodate the children, hence, the afternoon shift.”
The afternoon shift was created for those students studying in kindergarten to class 5. Four schools in Oman, including Indi- an School Muscat, Indian School Darsait, Indian School Mabela, and Indian School Wadi Kabir, offered afternoon shifts to accommodate more students.
As parents, students, and teachers were not happy with the shift system, the board took up the matter. There are three school projects being considered, which will accommodate a large number of students, thus completely eliminating the need for afternoon shifts.