Ebonyi state to reopen schools in August

Schools in Enugu state will reopen for academic activities between August and September, state government announces.

Recall that schools in the state have been under closure since March as part of measures to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

This announcement was made by the state Governor, Dave Umahi at the virtual Executive Council Meeting in Abakaliki, the state capital today July 15.

He said the reopening will be done in phases.

“The public should note that Ebonyi state will reopen her schools immediately, not in the month of July, we have to start the process that will lead us probably to reopen our schools between August and September”.

And the process will be, the king David academy will be starting first, I am directing that all the coordinators, the chairmen of all the 13 LGAs , traditional rulers, town union presidents, should use local people to clear all the secondary schools, primarily schools.They should clear that, it has been happening before, everything is not government”.

So let us get them cleared when we do that I want Commissioner for Education, SSA Higher education, to note very specially that this is the time to develop e-syllables, starting with the teachers, this is the opportunity to develop e- learning that we have been talking about,” he said.

Governor Umahi said before the reopening, all the schools will be fumigated while the teachers will be made to undergo compulsory COVID-19 tests.

“Reopening of schools will start with cleaning of the schools, and every school we clean, we will fumigate it, and then do random test on the teachers. We will also deploy health workers to mount awareness within the communities where the school is situated”.

When school start we will have trained personnel to teach the children on Covid-19 protocols at least for the first one week.

This covid is real and we need to be very careful. It is not just to start school and all that, even if Nigerians should miss one academic year and stay alive,it worth it. The essence of everything we are doing is life, and we wouldn’t want our children to start school without proper awareness.” Governor Umahi said.

Ebonyi state currently has 615 confirmed cases of COVID-19. The governor is one of those infected with the virus.