ARUNACHAL : The Arunachal Pradesh government has decided to reopen all higher education institutions from January 5, 2021.
The state government is to reopen universities, colleges and polytechnics– from January 5. An official said, "It has also declared Saturday a 'working day' till normalcy returns, as the colleges/HEIs are facing acute shortage of physical teaching-learning days to complete the syllabus."
He further added, "However, no decision regarding the reopening of hostels has been taken yet, which will be intimated by the Government in due course of time."
The offline classes for students of classes X and XII started from November 16 last and for students of classes VIII, IX and XI, these are slated to begin from January 4.
The State Directorate of Higher and Technical Education has issued Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for all to maintain all the corona norms.
For colleges and polytechnics (both government and private), students of first/second semesters will have their offline classes on Monday and Thursday, while students of third/fourth semesters will have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.
Students of the fifth/sixth semesters will have their classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, Arunachal Pradesh did not record a single fresh COVID-19 case in the last 24 hours, a health department official said on Saturday. The state's coronavirus tally remained at 16,719, he said. Two more people were cured of the infection on Friday, taking the total number of recoveries in the state to 16,566, State Surveillance Officer (SSO) Dr Lobsang Jampa said.
The COVID-19 recovery rate in the state is 99.08 per cent, the SSO said. Arunachal Pradesh now has 97 active coronavirus cases, while 56 people have succumbed to the infection so far he said, adding that the fatality ratio is 0.33 per cent.
The state has so far tested 3,78,364 samples for COVID-19, including 213 on Friday, while the positivity rate stood at 0.92 per cent, Dr Jampa added.