Odisha schools reopen for students of Class 1 to 7 after two years

Bhubaneswar: After being closed for around 2 years due to the COVID-19 situation, schools across Odisha reopened for physical classes for the students of Standard 1 to 7 amid COVID restrictions, today.

The classes for the students will be held from 9 am to 1 pm. As per the instruction of the School and Mass Education Department, dry ration under the Midday Meal (MDM) program will be supplied to the eligible students until further orders.

“As the students were away from schools and have not attended offline classes during the last two years, our focus will be to refresh their mind through a special programme for next week without laying emphasis much on studies. The teaching process will start after one week,” said School & Mass Education Minister Samir Ranjan Dash.

“Students have been promoted to upper classes without class examinations in the last two years. Therefore, we are planning to make a mechanism after holding a meeting with academicians to make the students aware of the studies,” he further said.

Offline classes for students of Class 1 to 7 was originally scheduled to resume from February 14. However, it was postponed to February 28 as several district collectors sought additional time for undertaking cleaning of schools that were used as polling stations for the recently conducted Panchayat Polls in the state.

Earlier, schools in the state had on February 7 reopened for students of Class 8 to 12.