Bhubaneswar: Taking note of the alarming rise in COVID-19 cases, the Odisha government has extended the deadline for admissions to elementary and secondary classes by one month.
The School and Mass Education Department had, in an earlier notification, ordered the admission process to be completed by May 31.
Now, the School and Mass Education Department has written to District Education Officers (DEOs), Block Education Officers (BEOs) and District Project Coordinators (DPCs) stating that the last date for fresh admission to Elementary/Secondary classes as well as distribution of textbooks is hereby extended till June 30.
The Department directed the Director, Elementary and Secondary Education to follow the standard operating procedure issued earlier for admissions as follows:
— Admissions to be carried out with full compliance to COVID-19 precautions as per the government orders.
— Admission process is being taken up so that no child is deprived of due entitlements. It will also ensure that students are included in grade-appropriate academic activities and will further remove the anxiety and stress of students and parents.
— All students from Grade I to IX have been promoted to the next class for academic session 2021-22.
— All admissions based on promotions within a school will not require presence of students/ guardians. These are rolling admissions and schools will update their admission register accordingly.
— Wherever promotion requires the student to move from one school to another, in such cases, Head Master of current school, where the student is studying, shall send a list of such students along with the mobile number of parents preferably through email/WhatsApp etc to the headmaster of the nearby high school. The school which takes admission can take telephonic confirmation and other details as required from parents over telephone and admit the child.
— In case a student has to change schools, the parent/guardian can obtain transfer certificate from the present school and submit it to the new school for admission.
— Schools where temporary medical centres (TMC), swab collection centres and COVID hospitals have been set up can carry out activities relating to issuing Transfer Certificate (TC) or new admission from the nearest government or aided Primary, Upper Primary (UP) and Secondary school and this information is to be widely circulated in the area and informed to parents through phone/WhatsApp messages.
— In case of any difficulty relating to TC, provisions of Section 5 of the RTE Act may be followed.
— For new admission to Class I, information may be collected by Primary school headmasters from feeder Anganwadi centres preferably over telephone/WhatsApp etc. The headmaster will contact the concerned parent/guardian over telephone. It is reiterated that the presence of the student is not at all required for the admission process.
— If a parent’s presence is required in a case of new admission, The headmasters are to ensure that social distancing, hand hygiene, and other COVID-19 precautions are strictly followed. The HM will also ensure that each such parent/ guardian is informed about the date and time for arrival at school in order to avoid crowding.
— Hostel entrance examinations, where applicable, shall not be held now.
— Under no circumstances, admissions will be allowed in schools located within containment zones. Admission processes can be taken up after the area is declared as “out-of-containment” zone.
— Rationalization and consolidation of schools are to be completed as per policy and admissions to lead schools are to be done. No admission to satellite schools, which have been identified and verified to be merged with a lead school, should be done.
— DEOs, DPCs and BEOs will monitor the entire admission process for smooth and safe completion.
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