Odisha School Education Program Authority (OSEPA) has issued an order for this purpose. As per the order, a COVID Surveillance Cell with Command Control Center has been constituted in the office of the State Project Director (SPD), OSEPA.
The officers engaged in the cell will collect the daily attendance of classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 and monitor various COVID related incidents in the districts and submit the report to SPD, OSEPA on daily basis.
The government has also asked all District Education Officers (DEOs) to set up a COVID Surveillance Cell at the district level at the earliest and to appoint a senior officer as a COVID Compliance Officer.
The COVID Compliance Officer will ensure the implementation of the COVID protocol in the schools and collect the daily attendance of students from class 9 to 12 and submit the same to OSEPA on a daily basis.
The order said, ‘If any incident related to Kovid happens in the district, then the same will be informed to the undersigned on the same day.
Meanwhile, Principal Secretary School and Mass Education Satyabrata Sahu has issued a new SOP for the functioning of the schools.
In a letter to all the DEOs, Sahu said that the teachers have to ensure that the students coming to the schools should wear masks. If a student has come to the school without a mask, the school administration should not allow the student to enter the campus.
He said that thermal screening and hand sanitization of all students should be ensured at the entry point. Sahu asked the officials to ensure social distancing inside the classrooms and not to allow any student, teacher, non-teaching staff to have mild symptoms like cold, sneezing and fever.
The above instructions came in the wake of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik’s Covid-19 review meeting, where he said educational institutions would be held responsible if reports of negligence come to the fore. He had directed the local administration to constitute a special team to regularly inspect the educational institutions.
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