COVID Surge: Karnataka Suspends Classes For Standards Six To Nine In Bengaluru

Bengaluru schools shut down physical classes for standards six to nine: As COVID-19 cases surged in areas of Bengaluru, the government of Karnataka announced that regular classes for six to nine standards will be suspended with immediate effect on Thursday.

"Keeping in view the increasing COVID cases, the physical classes for standard six to nine has been stopped with immediate effect till the next order," Primary and Secondary Education Minister of Karnataka, S Suresh Kumar, said in a statement.

The regular offline classes for Class 10 student will however continue as usual. As for the other parts of the state, the regular classes for standard six to nine will continue and is under subject to the condition that the decisions for these areas will be taken as per the COVID situation in the future.

There is no set decision for the examinations of the students of standard six to nine yet. The minister informed that the decisions for the examinations of these classes will be taken soon.

The regular offline classes for standard six to nine started from January 1 of this year after the school remained shut for most of the 2020-21 academic year. Amidst the pandemic classes were conducted online for all standards till a decline in cases was observed later in the year. After cases begin to subside, schools gradually started conducting physical classes for students, starting with higher standards,

However, multiple reports of students and teacher testing positive for the coronavirus emerged after reopening of schools. In Munger, 25 students of Lal Bahadur Shastri Kisan High School tested COVID-19 positive following random testing earlier this year. In January itself this year, 31 teachers and two students tested positive for the disease in Odisha's Gajapati district. Then in February, close to 40 students and five staff members at a hostel in Latur, Maharashtra too tested positive for COVID-19. Read more on that here.

Image Credit: Times of India