Participants at the zonal stakeholders dialogue on readiness to reopening of schools in Nigeria, organised for South-West states’ commissioners and senior government officials in education, held in Kakanfo Inn, Ibadan, Oyo State, recently.
EFFORTS by the Federal Government to curb the further spread of Coronavirus among the citizenry have been intensified with the development of Safe School Reopening Readiness Template.
Recently, the Federal Government mandated the Federal Ministries of Education, and Health, in conjunction with the National Centre for Disease Control, UNICEF and other allied bodies, to develop an effective template to arrest the spread of the virus in Nigerian schools.
To clarify and intimate the state governments of the relevance of the template, a two-day meeting was held recently with the states’ education policy makers and other stakeholders, which ran simultaneously in each of the six geo- political zones in the country.
At the opening ceremony for the South-West states held in Oyo State, the Commissioner for Science and Technology, Olasunkanmi Olaleye, in his welcome address, reiterated the commitment of the government to prevent the transmission of coronavirus in the school system and everywhere in the state.
While he commended the Federal Government, the UNICEF and NCDC for their commitment towards saving Nigerians from COVID-19 pandemic, Olaleye said it was high time Nigeria made its school system technological-driven.
Speaking in the same vein, the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, who was represented by Mr Sunday Ogunkunle, a director in the ministry, stated that the zonal stakeholders’ dialogue became inevitable for every education policy maker, to deliberate on the Safe School Readiness Template being developed by the Federal Ministry of Education.
A consultant epidemiologist and infection prevention and control programme manager, who represented the NCDC, Abuja, Mr Abiodun Ogunniyi, noted that compliance of every school in the country with the COVID-19 control measures approved by NCDC was a fundamental key to control the spread of the virus.
He said: “We owe it a duty to make haste slowly in our efforts to keep building as we sail through this period of living in the new normal, as we collectively work harder to ensure education of our children is not adversely affected.
“This, we shall do, as we intensify efforts to ascertain that our schools are not only open to ensure academic activities continuity, but that we do this in a safe and healthy environment.”
While he enjoined the state governments to adhere to the guideline as stipulated by the template, he said that adaptation of the template was necessary to curtail the spread of the disease.
Also, the chairperson, Safe Schools Declaration Sub-Committee, Education In Emergencies Working Group Nigeria (EIEWGN), Abiola Sanusi, asserted that the dialogue was held to ensure that all the states in the federation were on the same page as regards school reopening readiness.
The UNICEF representative at the meeting, Dr Murtala Muhammed, declared that, henceforth, school monitoring is essential, while government should invest in the education sector to meet the increasing financial needs of schools.
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