State Human Resource Development (HRD) department minister Jagarnath Mahto has urged private schools in Jharkhand not to take tuition and transportation fees from parents till normal classes in schools resume. The minister said, ”I have asked schools to exempt tuition and transport fees till the lockdown period gets over, as many parents are struggling to cope with the current crisis occurred due to spread of COVID-19 in Country.”
Mahto said, “The school should take this decision on humanitarian ground as the schools have to take the final call.” He said some states have issued order in this regard. “I have sought the orders from these states. After studying them, an order in this regard will be issued soon in the state,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced nation-wide 21-day lockdown effective from March 24 midnight. Jharkhand government, however, had imposed state-wide lockdown to check the spread of highly infectious Corona virus from midnight of March 22.
As HRD minister has only urged schools and no directive has been issued the schools are yet to take a final decision on this. Private school authorities say they would have to think on it, as teachers’ salaries come from tuition fees of students.
A school principal of a reputed private school requesting anonymity said, “As major chunk of school fees is used in giving salaries to teaching and non-teaching staff, only school management can take a final decision on these.”
Jharkhand State Educational Research and Training (JSERT) has recently decided to promote all the students studying in government schools from class-5 to class-7 to higher classes without any examinations. The examinations for these classes were scheduled from March 30, which has been suspended. More than 15 lakh students from class-5 to class-7 would be benefitted from the decision of JSERT.
Meanwhile, in another development while the Jharkhand Government has taken various preventive measures to check the spread of coronavirus along with initiating schemes so that poor don’t face the problem of bread and butter, Sunday too was sigh of relief for State as no positive case was reported. On Sunday 17 suspected cases of Covid 19 were reported but out of these report 11 cases found to be negative while six reports is still awaited. Till date 196 suspected cases has been reported and out of which 190 cases report has been found to be negative.
Also the cumulative number of passengers under surveillance as on today & asymptomatic is 1031. Cumulative number of Passengers completed observation period of 28 days since arrival in India 203. The number of persons in facility (Hospital) quarantine is 453.