COVID Cluster In State: Odisha Govt Says Offline Attendance Not Mandatory; Check Details

Bhubaneswar: The School and Mass Education department in Odisha has said that offline attendance was not mandatory for students in schools and they can opt for online classes.

“Attendance is not mandatory in schools and students, whose parents are not willing to send them to schools, have the option of e-learning,” an official from the Odisha State Education Programme Authority (OSEPA) told TNIE on Sunday.

The decision comes after cluster outbreak of COVID-19 in two hostels in the state.

According to the official, a student unable to attend physical classes can access the e-content available on Diksha portal and other online platforms.

Amid the fear of a possible fourth wave, Odisha reported a huge spike of 71 cases on Sunday with 64 infections reported from Rayagada alone. This is the highest number of cases reported on a single day in the state, which has been reporting only 8-15 new cases every day for the past one and a half months.

According to official sources, 44 inmates of a hostel named ‘Anwesha’ in Kotlaguda area and 20 girl students of Hatmuniguda government high school in Bissamkatak block tested positive for the virus.

Informing about the two COVID clusters, Rayagada Collector Saroj Kumar Mishra said these cases were detected during random testing. “Since the students are asymptomatic, the samples are being sent to RMRC, Bhubaneswar, for re-testing,” he said.