NEW DELHI — Teenage student Aniksha is relieved to be back in class in India's capital — even if the choking smog that prompted her school to close last month has yet to dissipate.

Nearly 2 million students across Delhi were out of school for more than two weeks last month as the skies overhead turned a sickly yellow-gray.

School closures were aimed at shielding vulnerable children from the harmful air. But for students like Aniksha, it is a dreary ritual that disrupts their learning for weeks and keeps them stuck at home, isolated from friends.

"It's boring to stay at home," Aniksha, who uses only one name, told AFP on the grounds of her government school in the capital's west.

At the peak of the smog, levels of PM2.5 surged to more than 60 times the World Health Organization's recommended daily maximum.

Delhi's government gave schools the option to reopen last week, and many have resumed in-person classes in the days since.

But the crisis has not abated, with PM2.5 levels still 16 times the WHO limit on Tuesday, and the city regularly ranking as the world's most polluted by monitoring company IQAir over the past few days.

Schools are directed to offer online alternatives during smog closures to minimize disruption to lessons. In practice, remote learning highlights the gulf between the city's prosperous classes and its mass of urban poor.

"Online teaching doesn't help much, many children don't have smartphones or struggle for network," language teacher Vandana Pandey, 29, told AFP.

Pandey said the school closures also did nothing to protect the students at her government school, as they do not have the means to shield themselves from the poisonous air.

"They come from humble backgrounds," she said. "When they don't have school, they are either playing outside or helping out their parents. They are not staying at home."

Scientific evidence shows children who breathe polluted air are at higher risk of developing acute respiratory infections, a report from the UN children's agency said in 2022.

A 2021 study published in the medical journal Lung India found nearly one in three school-aged children in the capital were afflicted by asthma and airflow obstruction.

Agencies Via Xinhua