In a major development, the Tamil Nadu government on Thursday announced the revocation of its earlier permission to reopen schools from November 16 onwards for Classes 9, 10, 11 and 12. The state government said that since the parents had expressed conflicting views on the reopening of schools, the order to this effect has been cancelled. The closure of schools will continue till further orders, a government statement said. After chief minister K Palaniswami said on October 31 that schools and colleges would be allowed to reopen from November 16, DMK president M K Stalin slammed the government for its “hasty” announcement.
The leader of the opposition had said that a decision on reopening schools should be taken only in January 2021 after analysing the pandemic scenario.A section of parents also expressed apprehension over starting classes for 9-12 since the pandemic had not faded yet and extent to which students could adhere to measures against the spread of virus in schools.As on November 11, a total of 7,50,409 people had tested positive for Covid-19 in Tamil Nadu out of which 7,20,339 recovered. While 18,655 was the number of active cases, the death toll stood at 11,415.