After over a year, the Kerala government has decided to partially reopen higher educational institutions in Kerala from October 4, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan announced on Tuesday, September 7. The decision was taken following the expert committee’s COVID-19 review meeting. As per the decision, final year students pursuing undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in higher educational institutions, along with teachers and non-teaching staff of the institutes, who have taken at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine will be allowed to return to colleges.

The CM also announced that residential educational institutions, where students above 18 years are studying, will be allowed to reopen as well. “Such institutes can start to function from hereon. They will function as bio-bubbles. No one will leave the campuses and all the students, teachers and non-teaching staff should have at least taken one dose of the vaccine,” CM Pinarayi Vijayan said. He also stressed that all those who return to colleges should have compulsorily taken at least the first dose of vaccine. “Within a week, such people should get vaccinated. Necessary priority will be given for that,” CM added.

This is the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic struck that educational institutions are being reopened in Kerala, though many states including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Delhi reopened educational institutions, including schools, last month. However, Kerala has not yet announced the reopening of schools due to the high daily COVID-19 case count. On Tuesday, the state reported 25,772 new COVID-19 cases, taking the total number of people presently under treatment in the state to 2.47 lakh.

In the past 24 hours, 1.62 lakh samples were tested from suspected patients and the test positivity rate stands at 15.87%. The state reported 189 deaths due to COVID-19, taking the official death toll to 21,820.