Early Childhood Association! Latest Update for the education -Many early childhood centers (preschools and daycares) owners
have written to ECA-APER asking if they can reopen and when.
As per the lAP reopening guidelines- ‘Schools can be reopened only when the local epidemiological parameters are favorable, the administration is equipped with adequate infrastructure and health care facilities, and the stakeholders (teachers. students, parents, and support staff) are prepared for the new normal.
If the answer is yes to all the 7 questions given below (from lAP
reopening guidelines) then you are ready to reopen preschools and
daycares, if not. then it is too risky to bring back young children.
- Are the number of new cases of COVID-19 detected in the district steadily decreasing for the preceding two weeks?
- Is the case positivity rate less than 5 (that is, less than 5% of the total COVID-19 tests performed in the district per day turn out to be positive) for the preceding two weeks?
- Are the number of new cases in the district per lakh population per day less than 20 in the past two weeks.
- Has the government announced the reopening of high schools?
- Have the high schools reopened and settled into normal functioning for the last one month?
- Are you ready with the new norms of the infrastructure, training of the staff, and health and hygiene facilities?
- Have you created an alliance with local administrative and health authorities to guide, help, and support the school staff? the health department should be adequately equipped with enough testing capacity (75%; 59-87% as per the reference study, of the symptomatic contacts to mitigate a second wave), contact tracing, isolation, hospital beds, and facilities to fight any eventuality
If your reply is yes to all the 7 questions given above, then you are ready to reopen your preschool and daycare by following the ECA reopening guidelines (download from www.eca-!ndla.org)
If your reply to even one of the above 7 questions is negative then
don’t be in a hurry to reopen your preschool/daycare.
Don’t jeopardize health or young children. Don’t jeopardize the
battle against Covid-19, that India is fighting.