The minister of state for education, Mr. Emeka Nwajiuba said yesterday that Nwajiuba the federal government was working on a model to ensure that all school children do not return to their schools at the same time to ensure physical and social distancing as well as proper sanitation and hygiene in every school.
Nwajiuba who stated this at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja said the government was not ready to take the risk of reopening schools until the government it was sure that children could go to school, and return safely without being infected with the coronavirus disease.
The minister said the government will rely on the opinion of experts and the guidance of the World Health Organisation (WHO) before announcing any school resumption dates.
“Until we are sure that our children can go to school and return safely without taking COVID-19 home, we are not ready to take the risk of opening schools.
“We are going to publish a specification on what we expect COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 reopening to look like.
“We are not talking about coping with COVID-19 but in spite of COVID-19, we expect that we will adapt.
“For a country that has over 115,000 primary schools, you will understand that 35,000 of these who are private must agree to set up the same standard in order to allow children to go in.
“We may have classes in the morning and classes in the afternoon so that we will have the whole of the infrastructure divided, provided they can serve us. I am not sure we will have classes at night. But we can do with morning and afternoon for now,” he said.
He urged state governments and owners of private schools to plan ahead on how to ensure maximum safety for students when the resumption plan is unveiled.
He added: “The plan entails adopting a two-shift system and allowing those who will write exams to return earlier than others. Use this period to upgrade skills and think of how to make their teachings impactful. Those running the secondary schools should think of what to do.
“We are looking at sanitary conditions of all the schools. State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) should use some of the monies we give them to upgrade sanitary conditions in schools. We are also looking at having sanitisation booths working with National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI). It is a forewarning to private and state governments to ensure that these things are put in place before schools can reopen.”
He assured Nigerian children that all hands were on deck to reopen schools at a safe time and urged states, local governments, proprietors and other stakeholders to begin to take steps that would facilitate an early and safe reopening.
Nwajiuba stated that the announcement that schools would be reopening on June 8 did not emanate from the federal government
He said the federal ministry of education would publish post-COVID-19 guidelines for school reopening.
