Schools asked to furnish details of Covid+ students

NEW DELHI: The Directorate of Education (DOE) has sought data from schools about the number of Covid-affected students and employees in their institutes in the Capital, ahead of a key meeting of the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) this week, which is, among others, expected to discuss the return of the mask mandate in the city.

Schools said the DOE circulated a Google document on Sunday, asking officials to enter the details regarding the infections in their institutes. School heads said that the move was presumably to gather details about Covid trends in schools before imposing any guidelines or protocols on educational institutes. Officials from DOE did not respond to queries seeking clarity on the reasons behind the data collection exercise.

Sudha Acharya, chairperson of the National Progressive Schools’ Conference (NPSC), a consortium of over 120 Delhi schools, welcomed the data collection. “The Delhi government is presumably collecting data from us so that they can get understand the overall situation before the DDMA meeting on Wednesday. It is a good step because this will help them understand the Covid trends and accordingly take appropriate decisions,” said Acharya, the principal of ITL Public Dwarka.

Awadhesh Kumar Jha, principal of Sarvodaya Co-ed Vidyalaya in Rohini Sector 8, said that while Covid data had been sought from the school last night, it was not known if the data collection exercise would be undertaken daily. “We were asked to provide details about the number of Covid-affected students and we have already done that. We are yet to receive instructions if this will be a daily exercise,” said Jha.

Following the emergence of Covid cases from private schools in the Capital last week, the DOE, in an advisory last Thursday, said that specific wings of the school or the whole school could be closed if a Covid-19 case emerged on campus. The advisory also laid stressed on the need for mask compliance, distancing and other mitigation measures. “If any Covid case is noticed or reported to the school authority, the same must be intimated to the DOE immediately and the concerned wing of the school or the school as a whole, as the case may be, must be closed down for time being,” said the advisory issued by the Doe’s private school branch.