Parents have started to show confidence in school safety and almost 70% polled to have desired for the reopening of schools, a survey by Localcircles revealed.

Schools in Punjab are reopening from Thursday for Classes 5 to 12. As per the SOPs, the parents’ consent is mandatory, no child would be allowed without masks and they have been warned to not share masks with other students.

Punjab Education Minister Inder Vijay Singla has informed the school management that if the class strength is large, in a bid to follow social distancing, the authorities should either opt for alternate classes or conduct sessions in shifts. Punjab joined states like Kerala, Haryana, and Maharashtra who have opened educational institutions earlier in December.

In Kerala, schools were partially reopened from January 1 for Classes 10-12 with limited hours and a restricted number of students.

In Haryana, the government has decided to reopen schools for students of Classes 10-12 in December, while in Assam all schools and other educational institutions were reopened from January 1.

In Rajasthan, schools and other education institutions are preparing to reopen in January nearly after 10 months of Covid-19 triggered lockdown. The state government is positive about the decision, as the recent coronavirus recovery rate has shown improvement rising to an all-time high of 96.31 per cent.

Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot has decided to reopen schools for the students of Classes 9-12, alerting the people about the new strain of the virus from the United Kingdom. The students attending final year in graduation, or going to coaching institutes would also resume classes. As per the notification, schools would open from January 18 and medical colleges from January 11. All the educational institutes have been told to follow the Covid-19 protocol in order to contain infection.

In Bihar, the government has decided to reopen state government schools, colleges, universities, and coaching institutes from January 4. Ensuring social distancing norms, the government has decided that classes from 9 onwards would have only 50% of total strength, while the school management has been sent detailed SOPs. In order to contain the spread of virus, the government has also distributed masks to all students.

In Maharashtra, as per the data released by the state government on January 4, around 15 lakh students from Classes 9 to 12 are physically attending the classes, which is an increase from the numbers recorded a month before. The data has shown that Parbhani has the highest turnout (85.8%) followed by Kolhapur (64.6%). Though in some districts attendance was dismal and less than 10%.

The Odisha government has also agreed to physically reopen the schools for students of Class 10- 12 from January 8.

In Karnataka, schools reopened from January 1, 2021 for the students of Classes 6 to 12 with adherence to SOPs, while regular classes have resumed for students of Class 10- 12.

Regular academic activities resumed in Puducherry and Karaikal region from January 4 with all the COVID-19 protocols in place.