Hyderabad: In contrast to the recent surveys that revealed about 70 per cent of parents supporting the reopening of schools in the state, the Hyderabad Schools Parents Association (HSPA)’s in-house poll survey on Thursday said that 93 per cent of the participating parents did not want the schools to be re-opened as yet.
HSPA, an independent parents’ association that usually highlights annual fee hikes, conducted two poll surveys for parents on its Telegram group on Tuesday. While the first one is to note whether their wards are enrolled in government or private schools, the second poll was related to the re-opening of schools now, i.e. amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In the 332 votes polled on the survey related to re-opening, a massive 93 per cent of the parents preferred the schools to remain closed, while only 7 per cent wanted re-opening.
“There are concerns of the outbreak of a second wave and reports of students testing positive after the schools or colleges have reopened. We will wait until the situation subsides, or even till the vaccine is effectively rolled out,” said Seema Agarwal, president of HSPA.
“Due to these concerns, many of the parents, including me, don’t want to send their wards to school,” she added.
The first poll revealed that of the 318 votes polled, 98 per cent of the parents had their children enrolled in private schools and children of only 2 per cent are enrolled in government schools.
On January 4, the HSPA members met the education minister Sabita Indira Reddy for the third time and submitted representation for 50 percent pandemic fee relief.
HSPA is the parents association working for the cause of fee hike and demanding regulation of Private schools fee and other issues of school students.
Fatima Hasan is a Hyderabad based journalist