Schools Re-opening: Kwamena Duncan assures parents of safety of children

Mr Kwamena Duncan, the Central Regional Minister, has allayed the fears of parents with the assurance that their children will be safe when schools re-open on June 22 for senior high and June 29 for junior high.

He indicated that the safety standards put in place in all the schools would be religiously followed to secure a safe environment for teaching and learning and asked the students and parents not to entertain any fears.

Mr Duncan was addressing a stakeholders meeting at the Regional Coordinating Council in Cape Coast.

It was attended by MMDCEs, heads of senior and basic schools, regional and district health directors, the police and heads of department and agencies with the aim to establish a clear cut operational instructions for the re-opening of basic and senior high schools.

Among the measures taken are the fumigation and disinfection of senior high schools by Zoomlion, provision of three reusable nose masks for each student and hand washing stations positioned at vantage points.

Mr Duncan tasked MMDCEs to strictly monitor the activities of the schools in their respective districts to ensure they complied with all the protocols.

He admonished parents and students to also play their part by taking charge of their safety and observing all the outlined protocols to help achieve the desired impact.

Mrs Martha Owusu Acheampong, the Central Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), cautioned teachers to refrain from staying at home with the excuse that they were not teaching form-three students.

She indicated that more hands were required as a result of the split of classrooms for effective physical distancing protocols.

The Regional Director enumerated a number of safety protocols that the GES had put in place to avoid the spread of the COVID-19 among which are the maximum 25 and 30 students in a class in SHS and JHS respectively.

Other measures included aligning each school to a health facility for regular routine surveillance and to effectively handle any reported case.

Also, students would go through daily enhanced protocol before being allowed entry into their classrooms.

The JHS student would spend eleven weeks for revision and one week for their Basic Education Certificate Examination while the SHS would spend six weeks for revision and five weeks for their West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination.

Mrs Acheampong stressed that there would be no mass gathering, no religious activities, no sporting activities, no entertainment and no visitors for the period that the students would be in school.

Commissioner of Police (COP)Paul Manly Awini, the Central Regional Police Commander, said the police were committed to enforcing the wearing of nose masks and other protocols as their mandate demanded.

They had since March arrested 131 persons for non-compliance of the COVID-19 protocols, some of whom had been processed for court, he said.

COP Awini said the police would intensify its operational strategies and embarked on patrols at the various schools to ensure compliance with the established public health protocols.