Telangana: SOPs on reopening of schools keep Headmasters's, education babus on the edge

Hyderabad: Headmasters of about 20,000 and odd government schools in the State turned clueless on how to come to terms with the Standard Operating Procedures (SoP) and submit action plans for the reopening of schools from February 1.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao organised a meeting with the District Collectors and the higher officials of the education department on January 11. Following this, the State Education Department (SED) has issued circular to the school and college education departments to prepare action plans for the reopening of the educational institutions from February.

However, the headmaster and principal of each educational institutions have to submit an action plan covering logistics, medical and sanitation plan to a 9-member District Level Education Monitoring Committee (DLEMC) by January 18.

Speaking to The Hans India, a senior official from the Tribal Welfare Department said that the DLEMC has to prepare the action plans and submitted to the Directorate of School Education, other State Education authorities by January 18. Further, the State guidelines insisted that special care has to be taken in the case of government education hostels with the departments concerned like Social Welfare, Tribal Welfare, BC Welfare and Minority Welfare.

But, the catch is the implementation of a single component of SOP in the case of Entry of Cook-cum-Helpers (CCH) engaged in the mid-day meal in the schools alone giving jitters to the HMS.

According to the SED sources in all, there are 41,034 schools, out of these 10,635 are private schools. Further, of the remaining 30,399 government schools, nearly 9,675 schools are located in Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Hyderabad and Medchal districts. "the mid-day meal in several of these schools have been covered by the Akshaya Patra," the sources added.

The CCHs have to undergo thermal scanning at the entry of the school to check the temperature and it has to be recorded on daily basis. Besides, washing hands for 40 seconds before entering the schools, the CCHs must wear a face mask during cleaning, washing, cutting, cooking and serving of meals.

Further, no nail polish or artificial nails should be worn because they can become foreign bodies and may compromise on food safety. Also, no watches, rings, jewellery and bangles should be worn during cooking, serving and distribution as there is a danger of contamination of the product.

CCHs have to be cautious and avoid certain hand baits like scratching nose, running a finger through hair, rubbing eyes, ears and mouth, scratching beard, scratching parts of the body etc.

To implement all this, the Central guidelines asked first to conduct capacity building for CCHs and teachers through the digital model to create awareness about hygiene, safety, physical and social distancing in the schools.