Telangana High Court stays reopening of residential schools

Naveen S Garewal
Tribune News Service
Hyderabad, August 31

The Telangana High Court has stayed the reopening of residential schools and hostels in the state. The direction comes as a dampener for the state government that had asked all schools to end online teaching and resort to physical classes.

The high court made it clear that students in other schools cannot be compelled to attend physical classes from September 1. The order came in a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the government order to reopen all educational institutions.

A Bench headed by acting Chief Justice MS Ramachandra Rao passed an interim order that said: “Residential schools and hostels cannot be reopened from September 1.”

It further observed that the remaining schools, both government and private, can reopen, but students should not be compelled to attend physical classes.

The Division Bench clarified that students couldn’t be penalised for not attending classes, and parents should not be forced to send their wards to schools.

However, the court left it to the schools to decide whether to run physical or online classes or both in tune with the facilities they have and as per the convenience of the parents. Education Department has been asked to issue a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for conducting physical classes.

On August 23, the Telangana government had decided to reopen all educational institutions from September 1. Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao directed the officials to reopen all institutions from KG to Post Graduate classes in rural and urban areas.