The Birbhum District Primary School Council (DPSC) has directed teachers to start attending primary schools regularly from Thursday amid a buzz that the Bengal government may resume classes for students below Class IX at the start of 2022, ending the pandemic-induced gap since March 2020.

An order issued by the district DPSC chairman Pralay Nayek instructs teachers to start attending their respective campuses and assess the infrastructure at schools, visit homes of students to re-admit them and start the process for new admissions.

Birbhum has 2,401 primary schools and nearly 9,500 teachers who look after around 2.60 lakh students.

After Nayek issued the order on Wednesday evening, teachers of many schools visited their respective campuses on Thursday.

“All the teachers have to attend their schools as they used to before the pandemic. They will finish all the required work, including progress reports… and look after the infrastructure. If the government announces the reopening of schools in January, requisite work would have been done in advance,” said Nayek.

Teachers must report to the officials concerned if any school infrastructure was found damaged or needed replacement, Nayek added.

Sources in the primary school education department hinted all government primary schools could resume classes in January.

“The schools should be opened within January next year as the new academic session will be afoot. If schools are closed, senior students may face problems in getting transfer certificates. Many students could not be admitted to Class I last year owing to the harsh phase of the pandemic then. now, it is important to admit all such students into primary courses,” said an official of the department based in Calcutta.

Nayek said December was an important month for the admissions process and that if schools stayed shut now,there was no way to bring back dropouts to the education system.

“Our teachers will visit the homes of students and talk to guardians,” Nayek added.

The decision of the Birbhum DPSC was welcomed by several teachers’ organisations, who said such orders bode well for students and teachers eagerly waiting for schools to reopen.

“We welcome the move that the DPSC has taken,” said Bharat Pal, central committee member of the All Bengal Primary Teachers’ Association.

Arindam Bose, president of the West Bengal Trinamul Primary Teachers’ Association, echoed Pal.

“A sizeable section of the teachers told us that they want to start attending school. We are hopeful that the government will reopen primary schools across the state very soon,” said Bose.