West Bengal Schools to Rope in Open-air Classes to Ensure Effective Teaching Pedagogy Amidst Third-wave Scare

The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has upended the education sector drastically as well, apart from claiming numerous lives. It has majorly altered the way the classes in schools, colleges and other educational institutions used to operate. However, almost 2 years after reeling under the pandemic, the West Bengal government has now decided that school students will not be deprived of physical classes anymore.
As a latest initiative on the education front, the West Bengal government has decided to launch 'Paray Sikshalay' (neighborhood school). The initiative is aimed at providing lessons to primary and pre-primary students of state-run schools in open spaces. An official stated on Sunday, January 23, 2022 that this initiative will help the students get accustomed to the offline teaching environment again.

Adding to its perks, the open-air environment will help in averting the Covid-19 infections and will also ensure that Coronavirus is not rapidly transmitted from one child to another, the probability of which is quite high inside that of a classroom. PTI quoted an official who stated, "Children have long been deprived of offline tutorial lessons owing to the restrictions imposed due to Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, now we have decided to conduct offline classes on open ground to impart efficacy to the teaching methods, which had been absent in the online mode of teaching."

Additionally, the students will also be encouraged to participate in extracurricular activities such as painting and elocution, which will also advance in open-air. This initiative has surfaced at a time when some of the state governments are perplexed over the offline conduct of classes in schools.

A recent survey conducted in Maharashtra revealed that approximately 62 percent of parents are reluctant to send their schools from January 24, 2022. Notably, the Maharashtra Government had given the nod to the resumption of offline academic activities in the schools of the state from January 24.