Indian schools in Oman resume in-person classes after two years

Muscat: Neighbourhoods near Indian community schools in Oman were filled this week with vehicles driven by many parents and bus drivers dropping off children to school for the first time in two years.
In-person classes had been suspended for all children attending Indian schools in Oman during the pandemic, with most lessons moving online.

Although a blended learning system had been instituted for some time across some classes in Indian schools, physical classes are now back in place across all classes in most Indian community institutions in Oman.

Returning to physical classes is a move welcomed by many parents in the capital, Muscat. “Children are at an age where they need to go to school and develop their mental, analytical and thinking skills, and you cannot do that if you spend all day at home in front of a screen,” said Ayush Sharma, a father of two girls who attend school in the capital. “They need to be around their friends, they need to play, there needs to be proper interaction in the classroom…only then will children develop the right way.

“Yes, the pandemic meant that learning online was unavoidable – there was no other way to do it, but now that schools have fully reopened, we are looking forward to our children interacting with their friends again.” With no physical school in place for two years, however, it was hard for some parents to get their children back into their pre-pandemic routines of preparing properly for the next day.

“During the peak of the pandemic, I wouldn’t mind if my children slept late, because it was one of the few freedoms we could give them,” recalled Dominic Fernandes. “At that time, they could not go out to play, couldn’t go to the malls, couldn’t even go out to restaurants with us, and so there was pretty much nothing for them to do, but stay at home.

“There was a bit of an argument last night when my younger son fought with my wife about why he needed to go to bed early: he had forgotten that schools were not online anymore,” he added. “It will take some time to get back to the old routine, but in a way, we are glad that yet another event associated with normalcy is back.”

With the return of physical classes, however, another inconvenience that parents faced before schools shut for the pandemic reared its head once again.

“If there was one thing that gave us pre-pandemic familiarity, it was the traffic outside school, when I went to drop my son and his neighbour yesterday morning, because all the parents and bus drivers drop the kids off at about the same time,” said Abdul Monim. “For two years, we had forgotten what that was like…it also meant my wife and I needed to wake up earlier in the morning, and that’s not something we’ve done in a while.

“These are of course small sacrifices all of us need to make…I for one am very glad that our children can go to school again – they have really missed it over these past two years,” he said.
“The schools will make efforts to include plans to engage parent community, provide required
resources for healthy and safe school environment. There will be a specific action plan to
recover learning loss due to remote teaching,” said Dr. Sivakumar Manickam, Chairman, Board
of Directors, Indian Schools in Oman.