Government schools are finding it difficult to rearrange tables and benches to ensure physical distancing among students, the heads of several institutions said.

The authorities are managing because fewer students are now going to school but once students of more classes are called to the campus, it will be difficult to enforce physical distancing, a key precaution against Covid-19.

Schools have reopened for in-person instruction for students of Classes IX to XII following a nod from the state government. The students of five classes can now attend in-person classes because Class X has two batches — one that has just been promoted from Class IX and the other that will write Madhyamik in June.

Schools are now trying to seat two students on one bench and one in the next row. Before the Covid-19 outbreak, each bench would seat up to five or six students.

Many schools have split a class into smaller sections and assigned separate rooms to each. Some are calling students in batches, while others are conducting classes in halls so more students can be accommodated adhering to the physical distancing norm.

At Jadavpur Vidyapith, students are being called in batches.

“Depending on the size of the room, we can accommodate 12 to 16 benches that can seat 18 to 24 students.

We are calling students in batches because we have to accommodate all of them,” headmaster Parimal Bhattacharya said.

Class IX at Krishnachandrapur High School in South 24-Parganas has 560 students - 140 in each section. “We don’t have enough benches to accommodate all students and yet maintain the physical distancing norm,” headmaster Chandan Maity said.

“This problem is faced by many schools. To overcome the problem, schools are calling children on alternate days,” said Maity, who is also the secretary general of an organisation of school heads.

“We have used up all the benches we had. We are now using halls to conduct classes. Once students of Classes V to VIII start coming, we will possibly run out of benches or rooms,” said Pulak Roy Chowdhury, the headmaster of Kanaknagar SD Institution in Hingalganj, North 24-Parganas.

Several heads said the situation was still manageable because the number of students going to school was much less than what they had expected.

“That is helping us maintain the physical distance protocol in each classroom,” a headmaster said.

“The attendance was never 100 per cent even before the pandemic struck, so we could seat every student who came,” said Sajal Dey, the headmaster of Barajirakpur Tarun Sangha High School (HS) in Basirhat.

“Over the last two days, about 37 per cent of the students who were asked to go to school turned up.

That helped us maintain adequate distance among them,” Dey said.