Telangana schools to reopen on February 1 for Class 9 and above

Schools in Telangana will reopen for students in Class 9 and above on February 1, as Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday asked officials to make necessary arrangements for the same. In a brief statement, the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said that KCR also asked officials to prepare for the COVID-19 vaccination programme that is expected to roll out soon. Schools have been shut in the state since March last year due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown.

While private schools had begun online classes for their students, classes for government school students were being conducted through T-SAT and Doordarshan. While further details on schools reopening in Telangana are awaited, the state government is likely to follow the guidelines laid down by the Union government.

“Classes should be held for the students of Class 10, Intermediate (Class 11 and Class 12), Degree, and other professional courses.  Meanwhile, keep hostels, residential schools, and all educational institutions ready and ensure that the toilets are clean. The Collectors should take necessary measures to keep educational institutions clean and hygienic. Since they have been closed for many days, clean the entire premises. Ensure that food grains, essential commodities are not rotten. By January 25, keep the educational institutions ready to conduct classes. Ministers should visit SC, ST, BC Hostels and see to it that they are fit for the students to stay,” the CM said.

The statement came after KCR held a meeting with ministers and District Collectors at his camp office, Pragathi Bhavan, on Monday. The meeting was also attended by government advisors and senior bureaucrats.

Meanwhile, the state's COVID-19 tally crossed 2.90 lakh on Monday after it reported 224 new cases in the last 24 hours, health officials said. One more person succumbed to the virus, taking the death toll to 1,566. According to the Director of Public Health and Family Welfare, the fatality rate remained 0.54% against the national average of 1.4%.

While 44.96% of the deaths occurred due to COVID-19, 55.04% had comorbidities. A total of 461 people recovered from the virus in the 24-hour period, taking the cumulative number of recoveries to 2.83 lakh. The recovery rate improved to 97.90% against the national average of 96.4%, the state government said.

The number of active cases in the state was 4,518, including 2,439 who are in home or institutional isolation. For a seventh consecutive day, the Greater Hyderabad region recorded less than 100 new COVID-19 cases. The state capital logged 56 new cases during the last 24 hours.

Rangareddy district recorded the second highest number at 26 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri (13), Karimnagar (13), Sangareddy (11) and Warangal Urban (14). The daily count in all other districts was in single digit.

Like every weekend, the number of daily tests were cut down by over 50%. While government-run laboratories conducted 21,690 tests, the remaining 3,095 samples were tested in private labs.

There are 19 government-run laboratories, 56 private laboratories and 1076 Rapid Antigen test centres in the state.

With IANS inputs