The UN Agencies, the World Bank and the international organizations have proposed that the reopening of schools should be considered and have come out with document "Framework for Reopening Schools" (https://www.unicef.org/documents/framework-reopening-schools) in wake of the 'global school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic present an unprecedented risk to children’s education, protection and well-being.'
The document pleas, "Schools do much more than teach children how to read, write and count. They also provide nutrition, health and hygiene services; mental health and psycho-social support; and dramatically reduce the risk of violence, early pregnancy and more. And it’s the most vulnerable children who are the hardest hit by school closures, and we know from previous crises that the longer they are out of school, the less likely they are to return."
The proposed guidelines outline six key priorities to assess the readiness of those schools and inform planning. I personally feel that the schools should download the document and train their staff to get ready for safe reopening of the schools when it is permitted.
Some schools in India have gone through the document and found it useful for re-organising their schools to make institutionalized learning safe. The Plenum School in the hills of North India which was closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been running online classes and also readying the school taking clues from the documents as reported through a facebook post in case reopening is permitted by the authorities.
In the inset hand-written note, as inspired by the post, I sum up some suggestions suitable for schools in India.
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