Goa School Reopening: Parental consent not mandatory to attend offline classes

State Education Director Bhushan Savaikar requested heads of government, government-aided, unaided pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher secondary and special schools to not insist on parents' consent for students to physically attend classes.

Goa School Reopening: The government of Goa on March 1, 2022, withdrew an official circular making consent from parents mandatory for children to attend classes in the offline mode. According to PTI, the government released a new circular issued during the day. In the notice, State Education Director Bhushan Savaikar requested heads of government, government-aided, unaided pre-primary, primary, secondary, higher secondary and special schools to not insist on parents' consent for students to physically attend classes.

With the commencement of offline classes, schools started forcing content forms on parents to sign. The new circular was released by the authority after parents started raising objections to the consent forms.

In Goa, almost all educational institutions have received directions to begin physical classes from last week. The decision came after the number of COVID-19 cases dropped drastically in the coastal state. Savaikar said that the circular withdrawing the requirement of consent from parents has been issued with the approval of the competent authority.

Meanwhile, schools across the country have started prepping up to go offline. In the National Capital, the Delhi government has decided to begin schools completely offline starting April 1. The government has also stated that consent from parents would be necessary to attend offline classes. For now, the schools are conducting classes via both online and offline mode. Other states such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and others have also started conducting classes offline.

Goa on Monday reported 18 new cases of coronavirus that took the tally of infections to 2,45,019, leaving the state with 271 active cases.

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