The Federal Government has said it has not come to a point
where it is convinced that schools should be reopened for academic exercise
after their closure due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba,
disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja at a meeting of the Presidential Task Force
(PTF) on COVID-19 with the Northern Traditional Leaders Committee (NTLC) on
National Primary Health.
The meeting was presided over by the Minister of Information
and Culture on behalf of the Chairman of PTF and Secretary to the Government of
the Federation, Boss Mustapha, NAN reports.
The meeting was to seek the support of the traditional
rulers towards preventing community spread of COVID-19.
Responding to a question from Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence
Sa’ad Abubakar, on school reopening, Nwajiuba said the federal government is
still evaluating the situation.
“At the moment, we have not come to the point where we can
say we are convinced that schools can manage themselves and reopen comfortably.
“Our teams have gone out, and we will use the whole of this
week and next week to do a proper evaluation.
“We are going round to see the level of compliance, but most
importantly, we are waiting to get an update on all the facilities in every
part of Nigeria.
“So, it is a work in progress,” he said.
The minister said the government strongly believes in the opinion of experts that 15 percent of transmission of the pandemic is from the school environment.
“We believe expert opinion that a school system is a suspect
place for transmission, and that is why we are working with them, particularly
on guidelines.
“We are suggesting that classes be remodelled if there are
not enough classrooms for social distancing,
“We can do this system where some can come in the morning,
maybe the junior classes and the senior classes can come in the afternoon.
“We are also working out guidelines such as the washing of
hands because the school must go on at one point,” he said.
The minister said they experimented with the system in the
past weeks during the West African School Certificate Examinations and the
Joint Admission Matriculation Examination.
“We are lucky thus far because we only recorded an incident
in Gombe where a child contacted COVID-19.
“We quickly isolated him, and he recovered in time to join
the class back.
“But that showed that these places are sources of spread,”
he said.
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