Several schools that had decided to start the new academic session on-campus have cancelled in-person classes as of now because of the rise in Covid-19 cases.

A few of them will take a decision by next week, heads of schools said.

Modern High School for Girls, St James’ School and Julien Day School, Ganganagar have taken a decision not to hold any on-campus classes currently.

Schools like Calcutta Girls’ High School, The Heritage School and South Point will take a decision next week after weighing the situation.

Both The Heritage School and Calcutta Girls’ are unlikely to start in-person classes.

Modern High School for Girls, which had scheduled to call the students of Classes X and XII from April 6, will not do so. Instead it will conduct online classes till the end of April. The school will review the situation towards the end of the month.

“We had been observing the situation for the past few days and took the decision on Friday. We have to think about the safety of our children and teachers,” said Damayanti Mukherjee, the principal of Modern High School for Girls.

Mukherjee said the students, whose parents had given consent, were to attend the classes in the school while the rest would have continued with the online classes through “live streaming”.

The government had given a go-ahead to schools to call students of classes IX to XII on campus from February 12. The schools were closed from March last year as a precaution against Covid-19.

At least heads of two schools said they would have wanted to call students to school in the new academic session. But with the surge in Covid cases they are not sure whether it would be prudent to call children on campus.

In several schools the Class XII practicals will be conducted in April and it would not be wise to increase the gathering of students under the changed situation, a head said.

Schools are also worried about jeopardising the board exams that are scheduled to start on May 4 for ICSE (Class X) and ISC (Class XII) theory and CBSE (Classes X and XII).

“We had thought of calling the students initially but decided otherwise. Even if one student gets infected the school will have to shut down which can affect the board exams because we are also an exam centre,” said Terence Ireland, the principal of St James’ School.

At least three city schools had to shut down for about a week after two students — one in each of the two schools — and a teacher in a third school tested positive for Covid-19.

The schools which are yet to decide will consider the risk factors before taking any decision.

“We are waiting a little before taking any decision but seeing the situation and the rise in infection chances are that we would continue with online classes, " said Basanti Biswas, principal of Calcutta Girls'.