January 2021 Schools Reopening Safety is Assured – GES

As we draw towards the January 2021 school reopening, the Ghana Education Service has assured the general public of the safety of learners.

The GES disclosed to parents and guidance that, it will ensure every school environment is safe ahead of the much-anticipated reopening of schools in January 2021.

Schools were shut down in March 2020 due to covid-19 and the final decision of the government in September revealed schools were to remain closed until January 2021.

The latest update was given by Mr. Victor Amponsah, of the Special Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

His assurance came during a 2-day training workshop organized for the regional advocacy taskforce in charge of the “Back-To-School” Campaign held in Wa.

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Pre January 2021 Schools reopening activities

According to Mr. Amponsah, activities that will be carried out in preparation for the January 2021 Schools reopening would include disinfecting of all schools. Again, school children (students and pupils) will be supplied nose masks and hand sanitizers by the government to help protect them and prevent the contracting or spreading of Covid-19.

He furthered that, the checking of temperatures will be a routine and will be carried out in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings to safeguard the safety of schools and learners.

Schools would be required to create isolation centres and the government through the Ghana Health Service will create isolation centres to deal with suspected cases, abnormal temperatures among others.

At the event, Mr. Amponsah disclosed that the program “Back-To-School” was put together to prepare and help plan mitigating activities and plans due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated effects on learners especially girls and education in general in the country.

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The “Back-To-School” campaign

Students have been forced to stay home for nearly 10 months due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Director-General of Education, therefore, deemed it necessary to start the “Back-To-School” campaign as a way of informing parents and other stakeholders of education about preparations ahead of the next reopening.

The GES believes through this campaign, the government, the Ghana Education Service and parents will know their responsibilities towards a successful reopening of school

Mr Amponsah furthered that, the GES realized some girls who had been registered for the BECE were absent during the one-week exams and investigations showed that some of these girls were pregnant at the time the examination started.

  “During the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), we realized that some of the girls were not in school and those that were in school, some were pregnant,” He said.

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The four thematic areas of the Back-To-School campaign

According to Mr Amponsah, the Back-To-School campaign has four thematic areas to cover. They include

1. Education on COVID-19 and its protocols.
2. Safety of schools.
3. Pregnancy and re-entry.
4. Psychosocial effect of COVID-19 on students whose parents contracted the virus.

The campaign is a partnership between the Ghana Education Service and The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF). The programme would be held at the regional level in all 16 regions of the country. The next level will be the replication of the programme at the community level. It is expected that, through the programme, parents will be confident to allow their children to return to the classroom, and government and its stakeholders will be better placed to provide safe schools for teaching and learning.

In the wake of the COVID-19, stigma against those infected but cured was on the increase. The program would help address issues of stigma against students whose relations or parents might have contracted covid-19.

What is Ghana’s COVID-19 situation as of November 18? 

Ghana’s COVID-19 cases count as ta November 19^th, 2020 was 1019 per data captured on the Ghana Health Service website. The government and the Ghana Medical Association have called on the citizenry to religiously observe the COVID-19 protocols to ensure the country does not suffer the second wave of COVID-19. Ghana has recorded 50,941 COVID-19 cases, with recovered/discharged patients totaling 49,599 with 323 deaths. This puts Ghana’s COVID-19 recovery rate at 97.4 percent.

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Private School Owners, Teachers, and Covid-19

Owners of Private Schools and their teachers who were hard hit by government decisions to close schools down to protect children and the citizens as a whole will be the most excited as the government undertakes the Back-to-School campaign.

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These proprietors and proprietors and their teachers have lost their source of income due to the pandemic. The government’s stimulus packages for small and medium scale businesses did not consider private schools. Although there were efforts to support them, schools are yet to reveal whether they have received any form of help from the government, and teachers in such schools have also not received any form of compensation per information available to Ghanaeducation.org.

Source: GhanaEducation.Org