All Nagaland Private Schools’ Association (ANPSA) Central has urged the State government to review its decision of requisitioning private schools and hostels for use as quarantine centres.
ANPSA in a release issued pointed out that offices in all private schools are open now to facilitate online learning and teachers are using school infrastructure for online classes and preparing other online lessons, tests and exams. These activities require school offices to remain open and teachers to come to school.
Thus, if private schools and hostels were requisitioned as quarantine centres, the association said many private schools would have to stop teaching through online classes as hostels were attached in almost all schools. The first and foremost priority of private schools at this moment was to continue giving online classes/distance learning to children, it added.
Further, as many private schools and hostels were located in crowded and populated urban areas, ANPSA pointed out that waste disposal, laundry, meal preparations, entry and exist of people, ventilation, sanitation and cleaning and handling of PPEs, etc, would be a major problem as these schools and hostels were not built for such purposes. It suggested that quarantine centres be set up on the outskirts of urban/city areas.
Emphasising that safety of the quarantined inmates should be of utmost priority, the association said the schools and hostels did not meet the requirement of being community-based quarantine facilities.
Many hostels have single dormitories with shared bathrooms, toilets and common mess areas, while dormitories were not built for isolation but for facilitating social interaction. Extensive infrastructure work is required to turn these private schools/hostels into safe quarantine facilities.
Moreover, quarantine facilities require trained manpower to run them by strictly following safety norms, but private schools did not have trained staff. Also, it would be difficult to turn over private schools to people who would not be familiar with the infrastructure and facilities of the hostels.
Finally, many schools had residential staff with families living inside the school campus and had no other place to go to.
Thus, ANPSA Central urged the government to first use other facilities like private hotels, government hostels and other government buildings or build temporary quarantine facilities away from city centres.
Mentioning that no one knew how long the lockdown would go on or when the schools would reopen to run normally, the association urged the government to kindly support the private schools and allow their staff to focus on teaching uninterruptedly during this time of crisis.
The release was issued jointly by ANPSA Central president Nini Sekhose, vice-president Fr Jacob Charalel, adviser Pheluopfelie Kesiezhie, ex-officio adviser Bithungo Kikon, adviser Rev M Savi, joint secretary Abalie Medoze, general secretary PJ Nathan, treasurer Leneno Disong and publicity secretary Ashuli Apil.