Authorities at several high schools as well as local administrators in south Bengal are in a quandary about what measures they need to take as sections of teachers and students are diagnosed with Covid-19 and the school education department is yet to issue any guidelines on the ways to tackle the situation.

In the absence of the guidelines, sources said, the school authorities are closing down the institutions for some time when teachers and students test positive for Covid. In a few cases, the authorities have asked teachers who have not shown any symptoms of Covid to conduct classes.

The problem has cropped up ahead of model tests which are slated to start from Friday for Madhyamik and higher secondary students.

“We have five schools where teachers have reported Covid-19 positive. We sought help from the health department and sent a report to the state education department. We did not receive guidelines on how to deal with the situation,” said an education department official in East Burdwan.

Officials said in districts like Bankura, Birbhum, East Burdwan and Hooghly, there were at least four schools each where teachers or students reported Covid positive.

“If a teacher is found positive, then all teachers and students attending schools should go for tests. But in most cases, teachers are advised to go for tests but not students,” said a teacher of a high school in East Burdwan.

Chandan Maiti, the general secretary of the Advance Society for Headmasters and Headmistresses, agreed that they were in a fix in dealing with such a situation in the absence of any guidelines from the government.

“The government has given a directive to maintain Covid protocol while attending classes but there is no specific direction as to what should be done if teachers get infected. We are worried what would happen if teachers of a school get infected while conducting the test exams,” said Maiti.

A girls’ high school in Birbhum’s Nanoor was closed down for three days after seven out of 11 teachers had been detected with Covid on Wednesday. The managing committee of the school held a meeting on Tuesday and decided to hold a test examination for 250 students from Friday.

“We do not have the option to reschedule the dates of the test examination as we have to finish them by December 24,” said Subrata Bhattacharyya, the managing committee president of the Nanoor school.

The authorities of Bolpur High School have decided to exclude from the test exams five students who have fever.

A senior official of the health department said as a primary measures, they asked all teachers of the school to go for Covid tests but they could not be forced to close down the institution in the absence of any guideline from the state government.

“We have already written to our seniors and district magistrate seeking specific guidelines to handle schools where teachers have reported Covid positive. But we are yet to receive them. It is the duty of the education department to find a solution,” said a senior health official of Birbhum.

Sources said there were half a dozen schools in Birbhum where either teachers or students reported Covid positive.