The Tamil Nadu and Karnataka governments have put in motion a plan to see schools reopened soon.
While schools in Karnataka will resume classes as early as August 23, Tamil Nadu schools reopen only on September 1.
Both decisions came following a detailed review of the current COVID situation in respective states.
The Tamil Nadu government proposed to resume physical classes for students from classes 9 to 12 from September 1 and allow re-opening of medical colleges in the State from August 16.
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin arrived at this decision after reviewing the COVID situation with medical experts in light of a marginal rise in cases. The medical experts expressed the need to re-open the schools as the students were experiencing mental pressure since they were confined to their homes for months.
This was also creating "learning gaps" in society, the Chief Minister said in a statement.
Further, many children have no access to online education, he said.
"Considering the opinion of various sections, it has been proposed to re-start schools for classes 9, 10, 11 and 12 with 50 per cent of students from September 1 in adherence to Covid-19 standard operating procedure," Stalin said.
The Department of School Education has been asked to start preliminary work in this connection, he added.
Further, medical colleges, institutions of nursing and related ones can resume functioning from August 16.
Students and teachers of these institutions have been already inoculated with Covid vaccines, he said.
Karnataka
The Karnataka government has decided to reopen schools for students from class 9 to 12 from August 23.
The development came following a COVID meeting between Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai and experts from the health and education fields, ministers and senior officials of the state government.
After taking stock of the COVID situation in the state, Bommai said that the government has decided to impose a weekend curfew in districts bordering Kerala and Maharashtra and that the existing night curfew across the state will begin from 9 pm instead of 10 pm.
Currently, the night curfew in the state is from 10 PM to 5 AM.
"We have decided to reopen schools in two stages. In the first stage, classes 9-12 will start from August 23," Bommai said.
There are certain conditions for opening schools, as per which classes will be held in batches on alternate days and details will be given in the order, the chief minister said.
A decision on reopening primary and secondary classes up to class 8 will be taken August-end, after taking into account the possibility of a third wave and the intensity of COVID infections, the chief minister added.
(With inputs from PTI)