Gandhinagar, Aug 25 (IANS): After giving the nod for offline education for Classes 9 to 11 over a month ago, the Gujarat government on Wednesday announced that the schools will also open for Classes 6 to 8 from September 2 with 50 per cent capacity and parents' approval.

Earlier, with daily Covid-19 cases in the state coming down and after giving permission to colleges, polytechnics and Class 12 students, the state government had allowed offline education for Classes 9 to 11 from July 26.

Similar to the SOP issued for colleges and polytechnics, and high schools, the primary schools conducting offline education will have to carry out education with a 50 per cent capacity and will have to strictly follow the Covid guidelines. The state government has also mandated for the educational institutions to obtain prior consent from the parents of the attending students. The attendance has also been made voluntary.

"The cabinet meeting held today headed by the Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani has decided to resume offline education for classes 6th to 8th from September 2nd, Thursday. Similar to earlier announcements, parallely the online education will also have to be continued," said Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, the Gujarat education minister.

"More than 30,000 government and grant-in-aid schools and 10,000 private schools where more than 32 lakh children are studying will start offline education in Gujarat," added Chudasama.