FOLLOWING Supreme Court orders to the Sindh government to allow shopping malls to reopen after easing the lockdown, private schools have announced the reopening of their ‘businesses’ from June 15 whether they are allowed or not by the government.

While President of Peak Private Schools Management Association Shahzad Akhtar has been infected with Covid-19 and in a video message has requested all to take the virus seriously, his colleagues are bent on reopening the schools, putting the lives of children in danger.

Isn’t it strange that these private school owners are more concerned about children’s education than about their lives when we expect a huge surge in coronavirus cases in a few days or weeks?

The private schools have offered to hold classes in several shifts. I wonder how this strategy will work. If a parent has three children in different classes, will he/she be spending the whole day dropping and picking up from school their wards in different times?

Sending children by school van is out of the question because of high risk of infection. Even if some parents become so ruthless they opt for sending their children by school van, why would the van owner pick and drop their children in different hours of the day?

Will private school owners guarantee that our children won’t get infected by the deadly virus? How will the private school managements ensure social distancing once children are outside schools, especially those who travel either by public transport or by school van? Then most ‘elite’ schools are established in bungalows. How will it be possible to have 15 to 20 children in small rooms and yet maintain social distancing?

Recently, some ‘big’ private schools were caught violating standard operating procedures, huddling all teachers in a small room, and the head office of one them was sealed. If these elite schools can’t follow SOPs when they are closed for children, how and why will the small ones follow them if schools are reopened?

There has been a flurry of about 70 Covid-19 cases linked to schools in France just a week after one-third of the schoolchildren went back to school following an easing of the lockdown by the French government.

The French Education Minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, has admitted that the reopening of schools has put some children in new danger of contamination. French authorities have now closed some schools just a week after reopening them.

I wonder when a developed European country like France could not provide safe environment to schoolchildren in these testing times, how will our private schools manage to keep our children coronavirus-free?

Wish for reopening private schools is obviously derived by the lust for money. This issue involves our children. The government should establish its writ and ensure no school across the country is reopened without seeking health experts’ opinion. If the government fails, then it is a fit case for suo motu action by the chief justice.

Riaz Ahmad
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 5th, 2020