Experts stress the need to sensitise students about Covid protocols

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Even as the Delhi government has decided to reopen schools, colleges and coaching institutes from September 1, experts have advised parents to be cautious and stressed the need to teach their children about Covid protocols. Schools for classes 9 to 12, colleges and coaching institutions are resuming on September 1. Learning activities should be conducted in a blended mode, Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia has said.

The decision to resume learning activities at educational institutions come amid fears of children becoming the worst victims of possible third wave of the pandemic.

Children need to be educated about new normal

Media reports have quoted Dr Rahul Nagpal, Director, Pediatrics and Neonatology at Fortis Hospital in Vasant Kunj, as saying: “What I am seeing is that children are completely lost and we have to look at their mental faculties. Children need to be educated about the new normal.”

Classrooms should have proper ventilation and if it is a problem schools should go for hybrid education, he added.

In India, there is no vaccine against Covid-19 for children, but after precautions and coronavirus-appropriate behaviour schools can be reopened, he said.

Teachers and caregivers and other non-teaching staff of schools should be fully immunised against coronavirus before opening schools, senior paediatric consultant Dr Sarita Sharma is quoted in media reports as saying.

Schools in the national capital were closed in March last year ahead of a nationwide lockdown to break the spread of coronavirus.

Though schools were partial reopened in many states, in October last year, the Delhi government allowed reopening in January only for classes 9 to 12. They schools were again closed in April in the wake of a devastating second wave of Covid-19.

Mental illnesses, obesity, aggressive behaviour, sleep disorders have been rising at an alarming rate which has been going unnoticed, Dr (Maj) Manish Mannan, HOD – Paediatrics and Neonatology at Paras Healthcare, said.