The Telangana High Court on Tuesday permitted the reopening of schools from September 1 while staying the physical reopening of government residential schools.
The Court also directed that no child shall be compelled by any school management to physically attend offline classes if his or her parent is not inclined to send the child to school.
A bench, comprising Telangana High Court Acting Chief Justice M S Ramchandra Rao and Justice T Vinod Kumar, issued a series of directions to the government while hearing a PIL which challenged the government’s decision to reopen schools from September 1.
On August 23, the Telangana government decided to reopen all private and government educational institutions (resume physical classes) in the state from September 1 by following various (COVID-19) precautionary measures.
The High Court said all schools other than Government Residential Schools, Social Welfare Schools, and Tribal welfare Schools with hostel facilities are permitted to open from September 1.
The stay will be in place for four weeks on such schools and the government was asked to inform the court of the measures taken by it on following COVID-19 norms. "It is left open to school management to have either only offline or only online or both offline and online classes," the Court said.
The High Court further directed authorities to frame SOPs to be followed by school managements conducting classes offline within one week (from the date of opening of school on September 1.
Any undertaking obtained from parents by any school management absolving the school management of any liability if the child gets infected with a virus, while in school, shall not have any legal effect, it said.
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