TEZPUR, Sept 27 - Students of four schools in Tezpur town � Don Bosco High School, Tezpur Gurukul, St Mary�s and St Xavier School are facing an embarrassing situation as their classes have not resumed yet, as these particular schools, which were occupied by the district administration, for quarantining the labourers coming back from different parts of the country, have not been derequisitioned till date.
It is to be mentioned here that as per government notification, along with the rest of the State, in undivided Sonitpur District also, classes for students of class IX to XII in all private and government secondary and senior secondary schools have resumed from September 21 last. However, the authorities of these four schools have not been able to re-start their classes because of the aforementioned problem.
It is important to note here that like other schools, though the schools in Sonitpur district too are following the online mode as an alternative to normal classes to keep their wards engaged, but due to technical issues, the teachers as well as the students have not been able to take advantage of this mode of education. In rural areas, providing education through the online mode has proved to be useless, as 90 per cent students in these areas are either not acquainted with the system or cannot afford an android mobile phone. Moreover, in many villages, though some students do have the requisite phones, but due to the absence of electricity and internet, they cannot gain access to online classes, ultimately getting deprived of the materials provided by their teachers.
Some of the worried guardians here having children in the Xth and XIth standards in the above-mentioned schools said that even the town area, students are not successful in attending online classes due to poor internet services. �As our students are comfortable with the offline mode, we were happy that the government had given instructions to reopen the schools to complete the courses of the X and XII standards, so that the students can comfortably appear for their final examinations to be held in March 2021, but they have been deprived of the same as the administration is yet to derequisition their schools.� They urged the administration and the school authority to take necessary steps to resume classes after proper sanitization of the classrooms. When contacted regarding the matter, ADC, Health, Satyajit Chetia said that considering the increase in the number of positive cases, the four schools are yet to be derequisitioned. Yet we are monitoring the issue to explore some other option,� he said.
