New Delhi: Even as schools reopened for senior classes in the Capital, many private schools in Delhi saw a poor turnout of students — primarily due to the lack of school buses and other modes of school transportation like carpooling services.
Director of Vivekananda International School Vishesh Ahuja said that even though only 50 percent of the class is being called, only half of them turned up on Monday. "There are around 50 students in a class and only 25-30 percent of the class came today," Ahuja said, pointing out the lack of proper transportation as the reason for several students not showing up.
He also added that many were yet to return from their hometowns outside Delhi.
Another private school in West Delhi had school buses plying only on two routes, with a teacher saying, several parents are now in a tight spot as they want to send their children to school but since their office timings are clashing they cannot pick them up and drop them off. "If carpool or school buses ply, we will see a better turnout of students," she said.
For working parents, school reopening brings relief and trouble with school transportation stuttering. A working mother to a student of class 10, Kavita, said that they want to send their daughter to school but both of them have
work from 9:30 am and cannot drop her to school. "Earlier the bus would come and pick her up but to send our daughter from Lajpat Nagar to GK on her own is risky and till the time buses start we have asked her to stay at home with the house-help," she said.
And even as many parents are put in a tight spot, the existing restrictions put private schools in a bind over how expansively they can restart school buses. Many school administrators have said that since only half the passengers can be accommodated in
a bus to maintain social distancing, it would not be economically viable to restart the buses unless more students come back to school.
But even as this remains one of the key reasons for low turnout as school reopened, many schools have said that parents are not yet confident about the safety of their children and are hence not signing the consent forms.
A teacher of a government school here, Shalini, said that on the first day, the school had given out consent forms to parents and to some students who were to pass it on to other students in their colonies but "unless the student bring signed NOC from parents, how can we push students to come?" she asked.