Tobias Sylvester
The Federal Government on Tuesday submitted proposed guidelines for the reopening of schools across the country to the National Assembly.
The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba made the presentation during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education.
KanyiDaily recalls that the FG had in March shutdown all schools across the Federation as part of measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus disease.
During the presentation of the guidelines on Tuesday, Nwajiuba intimated the lawmakers of the education ministry’s plans for students to resume across the country.
“In the document we have provided, we have suggested how we can move our Education sector forward in this pandemic period. We don’t want to make it known at this period so that some people will not take our proposal for guidelines for schools’ reopening.
“This is because people publish fake guidelines everyday, which I always come on air to debunk. What we have now is a proposal. Even if the Senate has not called us, we would have come to you to discuss with you because we have already discussed with the House of Representatives.
“The documents were presented to you so that you can criticise and make inputs as major stakeholders,” he said.
The committee’s Vice Chairman, Senator Akon Eyakenyi, who presided over the meeting, expressed the fears that the academic calendar could be distorted in public schools where no visible arrangement was being made to teach the children at home, unlike their private schools’ counterparts.
She said public schools’ pupils were made to rely on educational programmes on radio and television stations whereas they tuned to stations showing cartoons whenever there was no adult to guide them.
The senator said children in public schools do not have access to online classes, like their counterparts in the private schools.
“Even when the pupils in the cities have access to education programmes on radio and televisions, what of those in the villages? What do we do so that we don’t shut them out?
“If government can give guidelines for the reopening of churches and mosques, stakeholders in the Education sector could also hold a meeting with the government to agree on guidelines for schools’ reopening.
“All we need to do is to come up with measures that would ensure the safety of both the pupils and their teachers.
“We can design a plan that would make sure that not all the pupils resume at the same time. We could probably start with the exit classes. We could have the numbers of pupils that would go to school in the morning and afternoon sessions.
“We have to be innovative in our approach to save our educational sector in this country because nobody knows how long the disease will be with us,” she said.
