Despite a warning from the federal government not to reopen state schools, the Oyo government said it would go ahead with its plans on Tuesday, with ‘modification.’
Its COVID-19 Task Force said it had modified the resumption date for the state’s primary six students, Junior Secondary School III and Senior Secondary School III.
Recent media reports show that the government of the state of Oyo lifted the coronavirus curfew in the state and also requested school students to resume their final year on June 29.
It also asked all civil servants to resume their duties.
This newspaper, however, also reported how minister of state for education Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba warned the state government about its intention to reopen schools.
The minister characterized as ‘insensitive’ the resolution.
The decision to amend the date of resumption was made clear in a statement on Tuesday by the chief press secretary of Governor Seyi Makinde, Taiwo Adisa.
Mr Adisa has told the task force, “which rose from a two-and-a-half-hour meeting today reviewed the state of preparedness of the schools ahead of the planned resumption.”
He also confirmed that the Commissioner for Education, Olasunkanmi Olaleye, and experts from the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) “had been going round the schools to determine compliance with the COVID-19 prevention protocols put in place by the schools”.
The statement added “the team has since discovered that a space of one week was needed to enable the schools test-run the facilities, especially the hand washing points and the security measures.”
The statement reads:
“By the new arrangement, teachers are to resume to the schools on Monday June 29, 2020, while students in critical classes including Primary 6, JSS3 and SS3 will resume a week later on July 6, 2020.
“As of Monday, June 22, no fewer than 372 Heads of Schools have been trained by the EOC on the management of the COVID-19 containment procedures, while each of the schools is to appoint an Incident Manager, who will ensure compliance with the approved COVID-19 protocol.
“Each student is expected to wear face masks, while the schools are to prepare well laid out hand washing spots to guarantee regular washing of hands by the students and teachers.
“The Task Force also resolved that by July 15, the state government would have reviewed the situation with the schools and come to a conclusion whether the remaining classes would be able to resume or whether the students would have to wait to resume the new session in September 2020.”
The statement also added that 8,000 COVID-19 tests have been conducted on residents.
“The community testing is currently going on in 10 locations, across the state, while testing would be regularly conducted from the secondary health centres located in the seven administrative zones of the state after the ongoing massive community testing exercise,” it said.