Uttarakhand education department has now decided that schools will not be opened, even for class 9-12 students who wanted to attend classes voluntarily, till September 30, given the steep rise in Covid-19 cases in the state in the last few days.
The decision followed directions to all the district education officers (DEOs) to start preparations for the opening of schools from September 21.
RK Kunwar, director for secondary education in the state released an order on Tuesday stating that as per the directions of the state education minister, all chief education officers are being directed not to open schools in their respective districts at least till September 30.
On Monday, the state education department had asked all district education officers to start preparations for the opening of schools from September 21, with proper sanitisation, arranging for masks and sanitisers for students and ensuring that only 50% of staff was present in school.
Education minister Arvind Pandey said that schools in the state will remain closed till further orders. “Children are the future of the state and the country, and looking at the rising number of cases, we do not want to risk the lives of our students. We have decided to not open schools till further orders. Officials have been asked to ensure that the current mode of education continues without any disturbance and that our students do not suffer in any manner,” said Pandey.
Meanwhile, with 1,391 fresh Covid-19 cases, Uttarakhand on Tuesday crossed the 34,000 cases mark, taking the state tally to 34,407.
The state also reported 1,008 recoveries on Tuesday with maximum 228 from US Nagar, taking the tally of total recovered to 23,085. With this, the recovery rate now stands at 67.09% and the rate of doubling of cases stands at 21.44 days.
The state also reported nine Covid deaths. With this, the Covid toll rose to 438 in the state of which 137 cases were of deaths due to coronavirus, while the others died due to comorbidities.
According to the health bulletin released by the state health department on Tuesday evening, 421 fresh cases were reported from Dehradun district followed by US Nagar (318), Nainital (226), Haridwar (219), Uttarkashi (51), Pauri (38), Tehri (31), Pithoragarh (30), Rudraprayag (27), Champawat (23), and Chamoli (7).
Dehradun district has reported the maximum, 8,391, Covid-19 cases so far followed by Haridwar (7,180), US Nagar (6,419) and Nainital (4,398).
The state has so far tested over 541,000 samples of which results of over 12,000 are awaited. The infection rate stands at 6.63% in the state.
Uttarakhand currently has 496 containment zones in nine districts, including 370 in Haridwar district.