Case by case: How nations are going back to school -- or not
Paris: The U.N. says it's urgent to get kids back to schools after months-long coronavirus lockdowns, but with the virus still raging in parts of the United States and resurging in countries from South Korea to France, Spain and Britain, medical authorities are urging caution.
Governments are taking different strategies toward the new school year, depending on how many infections they're seeing, the state of their health care systems and political considerations.
Here's a look at how some countries are handling reopening schools amid the pandemic: UNITED STATES
In the United States, where K-12 education is largely the responsibility of states and local school districts, President Donald Trump and his education secretary have urged schools to reopen in person.
But there has been heated public debate over the wisdom of bringing students back to the classroom, especially in communities with high daily new infections, so school reopening plans in the U.S. vary widely.
Most of the largest urban districts are starting the year remotely after a summer surge in virus cases. But other districts plan to offer face-to-face instruction at least part of the time. Some have already had to quarantine classrooms or shut down entire schools because of spreading COVID-19 infections.
AFRICA
Only six African countries have fully opened schools. In South Africa, students started returning to class this week class by class. It's the second time schools are reopening, after an initial reopening resulted in new infections and prompted new closures.
As daily COVID-19 cases are decreasing, the government has said all grades should be back in schools by Monday. The South African government has also allowed parents who don't want their children to return to school to apply for home schooling.
Elsewhere in Africa, Kenya has closed its schools for the rest of 2020. In Uganda, the government is procuring radios for rural villages to help poor families with remote learning.
JAPAN Some schools in Japan reopened Monday after a shorter-than-usual summer vacation to make up for missed classes earlier due to the pandemic. At an elementary school in Tokyo, mask-wearing children held a opening ceremony in classrooms instead of the school gym for better social distancing.
CHINA
As of last month, 208 million Chinese students, or roughly 75% of the country's total had returned to class, many on some type of staggered class schedule. The rest are expected to return by Sept. 1.
SOUTH AND SOUTHEAST ASIA
Schools remain shut in India, Nepal and Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, where the government says the virus has been contained to two clusters, schools were allowed to partially open this month for several grades facing government examinations shortly. Schools throughout Cambodia remain closed, while those in Thailand and Malaysia all reopened in July and August. Indonesian schools reopened in July with half-capacity classes and limited hours.
FRANCE
France is sending its 12.9 million students back to classrooms on Tuesday despite a sharp increase in infections in recent weeks. President Emmanuel Macron's government wants to bridge inequalities for children that were worsened by the coronavirus lockdown and get more parents back to work.
GERMANY Most German students are already back in school and at least 41 of Berlin's 825 schools have reported virus cases. Thousands of students have been quarantined around the country after outbreaks that some doctors attribute to family gatherings and travel during summer vacations.
BRITAIN Most of the U.K.'s 11 million students haven't seen a classroom since March, but children are to start returning to schools across England on Sept. 4. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called reopening schools a moral duty, and his government even threatened to fine parents who keep their kids at home. Among measures in place are hand-washing stations and staggered starts and lunch times, but masks aren't generally required.
NORDIC COUNTRIES Most schools resumed class last week in the Nordics, as they did at the end of the spring term, amid a general consensus that there is more harm for kids staying home than the risk of sending them to school. Sweden has few virus measures other than banning parents from entering schools when they drop children off.
High school students even protested after Denmark's second-largest city shut their schools because of new infections, saying they don't learn as much remotely and questioning why they can go to shopping malls, gyms or the movies with lots of others but not school.
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CT Ravi seeks impartial probe into Ballari clash, firing incident
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Chikkamagaluru: Legislative Council member C.T. Ravi on Friday called for an impartial and fair investigation into the banner-related clash and firing incident that occurred in Ballari.
Speaking to reporters in Chikkamagaluru, Ravi said the incident must be investigated thoroughly without prejudice or hatred influencing the probe. He said it was important to clearly establish who opened fire and who was responsible for the killing.
Referring to Valmiki Jayanti celebrations, Ravi said it was the BJP government that began officially observing the occasion, while the Congress, he alleged, had earlier denied the existence of Lord Ram and indirectly questioned the legacy of Valmiki. He recalled that during the Ram Setu case, the Congress had told the Supreme Court that Ram was a fictional character and not a historical figure.
On the Ballari incident, Ravi said registering cases or taking action with malicious intent was not appropriate. He added that whether banners were put up with permission or without it, forcibly removing them was wrong. If banners had been erected without permission, a complaint could have been filed instead.
Ravi also questioned how the government could justify people going near the residence of G. Janardhan Reddy to display strength. He said these circumstances suggested that the banner issue may only have been a pretext and that there could be other factors behind the violence.
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