The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) allowed hybrid classes in Delhi-NCR schools, hours after the Supreme Court asked it to examine the grant of relaxation of actions in relation to educational institutions.
NEW DELHI: Schools, colleges and other educational institutions in Delhi and neighbouring cities can resume physical classes but must simultaneously keep the online option open wherever feasible, pollution watchdog CAQM said Monday after SC allowed relaxation of these provisions while keeping other Grap-4 curbs in place.
Classes can be conducted in hybrid mode from Tuesday, CAQM said.
“The option to exercise the online mode, wherever available, shall vest with students and their guardians,” its order said.
Earlier, SC asked CAQM to take a call on relaxing Grap curbs on online classes. With physical classes suspended, the court said poor students couldn’t avail of midday meals and many didn’t have facilities to join online classes.
Other conditions imposed under Grap-4 would stay till further orders, the court said while slamming the authorities for not complying with CAQM’s order barring trucks from entering the capital.
Delhi AQI slipped back to ‘very poor’ at 339 after improving to ‘poor’ on Sunday.
Schools in a fix after direction to go ‘hybrid’
All lessons up to Class XII in schools and other educational institutions will be conducted in a hybrid mode in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad Ghaziabad and Gautam Buddh Nagar from Tuesday, the Commission for Air Quality Management ordered on Monday.
Following the direction of the Supreme Court on Monday to relax certain restrictions under GRAP Stage-IV, CAQM announced that NCR cities would conduct classes in a hybrid mode comprising physical and online modes until further orders. “The option to exercise the online mode of education, wherever available, shall vest with the students and their guardians,” the
CAQM order
said.
In its order, the commission also stated that NCR govts might consider conducting online classes in all other districts in addition to those named in the order. “Further, wide publicity shall be given for immediate implementation (of the order) by all the authorities concerned in Delhi-NCR,” CAQM stated.
The apex court asked air management panel on Monday to take a call on relaxing the order on mandatory online classes under GRAP stages III and IV, noting that many students would miss out on the benefit of mid-day meals, many of them didn’t have facilities to take online classes and many educational institutions too didn’t have facilities to provide online education. The court also noted that the “residences of many students do not have air purifiers, and therefore, there may not be any difference between the children sitting at home and the children attending school”.
Meanwhile the schools in the city geared up for the new challenge. Sunita, principal, Ravi Shankar SKV in Bawana, said, “We won’t probably opt for hybrid, but if it happens, we will need to reorganise our timetable and teachers’ work because we will require teachers to be available for both modes simultaneously. We will have to combine sections for lessons on similar subjects, especially in online mode. Offline mode will depend on classroom strength.”
Rooma Pathak, principal, MM Public School, Pitampura, stated, “It’s difficult to function like this. We tried the hybrid mode once but it proved ineffective for the students. A camera recorded the teacher taking classes as usual. Students at home could watch this footage.”
On November 14, chief minister Atishi had announced that all primary classes were to shift to the online mode in the wake of the city’s air quality reaching ‘severe’ levels. Three days later on Nov 17, CAQM ordered the implementation of GRAP Stage IV, which, in respect of school education, gives govt the option to shift more classes to online mode.
And then as the air quality kept on worsening, the Supreme Court stepped in and on Nov 18 – the most polluted day of the current winter season – directed all the classes to be held online. The court had also kept the GRAP Stage IV restrictions intact until further orders. On Monday, with AQI having moved out of the ‘severe’ zone in the past few days, it said CAQM could consider the order on compulsory online classes in schools.
