The Telangana School Education Department has issued a fresh notification declaring that staff and teachers with disabilities need not attend schools in view of the coronavirus pandemic. The notification was issued on Thursday.
The notification exempted the teachers and staff with disabilities from attending the ‘roster duty’.
In Telangana, though schools have not been reopened owing to the pandemic, education is being imparted via online and TV from September 1. Fifty percent of teachers and staff who are not in a containment zone are mandatorily required to attend school on a roster basis to monitor the classes from September 21.
However, following concerns raised by employees with disabilties, the department exempted them from the services.
The government is following the Unlock 4.0 guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which stated that schools can be opened partially for students belonging to classes 9 to 12 on a voluntary basis after taking a written consent from their parents.
Encouraging online education, the guidelines also said that all schools shall remain closed until September 30.
Recently, State Minister of Education, Sabitha Indira Reddy said that the parents are unwilling to send their children to schools yet, considering the health risk.
She said that from September 21, they would ask 50% of teachers to attend schools and also encourage the students after convincing their parents.
Meanwhile, implementing online education, as an alternative method, remains a challenge. According to Telangana Progressive Teachers’ Federation-- an association of government school teachers--only 40% of the students are able to access education on their smartphones and laptops.
The e-learning modules are also available only in Telugu, depriving the Urdu medium students of the education, the teachers said.
Acknowledging this, Chitra Ramachandran, Special Chief Secretary for Higher Education earlier told TNM that they are planning to make the modules available in both Urdu and English along with Telugu. Telugu and Urdu are official languages of Telangana.