Coronavirus: Sending 250,000 students home will be disastrous – GES
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, has kicked against calls to have Senior High Schools closed due to the spread of coronavirus.
According to him, keeping students in school is a better option.
“Closure of schools from the health point is not the best option. It is best we keep them in schools because if we decide to let them go home then we might as well close down the whole country…from what we have been told they are asymptomatic, so they are able to go about their studies.” He said at a weekly press conference in Accra.
Some 55 students and staff at the Accra Girls’ Senior High School have tested positive for COVID-19, a joint statement by the Ghana Education Service and the Ghana Health Service confirmed.
The school is among a number of schools that have recorded cases of the virus two weeks after the government reopened schools for final year students.
The spread of the virus has trickled public insistence to have the schools shut down as some countries including Nigeria and Kenya have canceled the academic year.
“We are hoping that when they get to the exam time because we have two or three weeks before they write exams, all issues will subside…but sending them home will be disastrous,” he added.
Minister of Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh has earlier on ruled out the closure of schools.
“You want us to close down the schools to what end? Nobody in the school contracted the virus from the schools. They all brought it from home. If you look at the protocols in place where do you think is better to isolate and quarantine?
“So I disagree with those calling for the closure of schools. I won’t agree with them today nor tomorrow,” he said in an interview on Peace FM.
The Deputy Health Minister, Benard Okoe Boye also agrees with the position.
“If you have a reported case of COVID _19 in a school, it’s not news because COVID-19 is a global pandemic…does that mean that if you record a case at a place, you should close down the whole place? What you need to do is to do contact tracing to manage the situation” he said
I suggest the students use the media for revision at home, their adherence to covid – 19 protocols in at school ,especially in their dometries cannot be guaranteed.
Disastrous from where? Did they quarintine the children before starting classes? Please release our children for us. Why don’t you think about the lives of our children first, will Ghana turn upside down if the exams is not written?
If covid 19 case doesn’t call for a closure then why has cocobod, ministry of finance, BOST and others been closed since they had a case?