Schools violate staggered classes guidelines

Islamabad : Residents have complained that some privately-owned educational institutions in the federal capital are violating the health guidelines issued by the government to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) among staff members and students, especially staggered class schedules.

The universities, colleges and schools were allowed to resume in-person classes across the country in September after six months long pandemic-induced closures while adhering to the notified standard operating procedures, including splitting of every class to 50 per cent strength for two days in-person and two-day online classes.

However, violation of the staggered class schedule guidelines has been reported in Islamabad’s private schools and colleges.

A resident complained to ‘The News’ that the elite private college in which his son was enrolled as a sixth grader didn’t arrange online classes and had forced all students to show up on campus daily to attend lectures.

He wondered how the students could prevent coronavirus in packed classrooms.

“Like other preventive measures against coronavirus, staggered in-person learning schedules were introduced to ensure social distancing in classrooms but my child’s college is blatantly violating this guideline by making all students attend classes in person every day,” he said.

The resident criticised the district administration over ‘indifference’ to that SOP violation by educational institutions.

There are also complaints against some other private schools and colleges about the breach of staggered class schedules.

The parents said those educational institutions seemed to have believed that the pandemic was over and the SOP enforcement was largely lax, so they had resumed in-person academic activities on campus.

They complained that the administration was sealing campuses after detection of COVID-19 cases but ignored the schools and colleges with high virus vulnerability due to SOP violations.

The parents demanded an effective crackdown on the violation of staggered class guidelines for the protection of students, especially minor ones, from coronavirus.