21 July
As thousands of children prepare to return to school across the country, it is essential that health protocols required to protect the children from COVID-19 are in place.
We welcome the decision of the authorities to reopen schools, but the opening of schools must ensure all healty safety measures are in place to keep children and educational staff and their families safe.
We all should remember the importance of social distancing and hygiene measures – including access to clean water – are of paramount importance to ensuring schools reopen safely.
After schools re-open, teams composed of representatives from authorities, the health department, education department and parent-teacher associations will conduct routine monitoring at the schools, as well as surprise checks, in an effort to enforce coronavirus safety rules.
This means the authorities and school administration boards must first ensure all health measures are in place including social distancing, availability of protective equipment and hand washing facilities.
The Ministry of Health and Sports and regional administrive bodies checked the high schools nationwide, and the schools were categorised into three grades. A-grade means readiness for openinging schools with health safety measures while B- grade and C-grade mean needed to ensure health measures and being considered not yet ready for opening . Over 7173 high schools nationwide, 5830 schools have been inspected and checked for health measures upto yesterday. Of them, over 3,770 schools have been granted with A-grade and allowed to reopen today while over 1,220 with B-grade and over 830 schools with C-grade are advised to fulfil their health measures to meet A-grade.
Once schools begin to reopen, the priority becomes reintegrating students into school settings safely and in ways that allow learning to pick up again, especially for those who suffered the biggest learning losses.
This is a critical moment as it is the launching pad for a new normal that should be more effective and equitable.
To manage re-openings, schools will need to be logistically prepared with the teaching workforce ready. And they will need to have plans specifically for supporting learning recovery of the schoolchildren.
We must do everything we can to protect this generation of children and ensure that they can continue to learn in a safe environment.
