City's private schools go back to online mode

Kolkata: Private schools across the city have shifted to online mode a day after principals were called in for a meeting and were asked to switch over to virtual mode or bring forward their summer break, in line with what the state had ordered for its own schools, attendees said.

Manish Jain, Principal Secretary of the state Higher Education department, chaired a meeting in person at Bikash Bhavan, the headquarters of the Education department on Thursday, which was attended by about 30 private school heads.

South Point School, affiliated with the CBSE board, has discontinued classroom teaching and shifted to online

with effect from Friday and will continue to do so till the commencement of the summer vacations.

DPS Ruby Park has also shifted to online mode and will continue to do so till the middle of this month when the summer vacation starts.

La Martiniere for Boys, affiliated to the ICSE board, had shifted to online classes since last week, immediately after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed the School Education department to pre-pone the summer break amidst the sweltering heat.

Don Bosco, Park Circus, also affiliated to the ICSE board, commenced online classes from Friday.

The government schools had notified that summer vacation would start from May 2 and will be on till June 15, except those in Darjeeling and Kalimpong, because of the heat spell.

Majority of the private schools had started offline classes from Monday citing improvement in weather conditions. The concerned school heads were summoned for a meeting and were told to discontinue in-person classes and switch to online teaching or declare early summer holidays.