Richard Ginika Izuora
The Federal Government on Thursday informed state governments and school administrators that schools would be allowed to fully reopen.
This is as a result of decline in COVID-19 infections across the nation.
National Coordinator, Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, at a briefing in Abuja said the full reopening of schools should be done in phases.
Aliyu said for educational institutions which include day-care, primary, secondary and tertiary institutions, they should begin the process of working towards potentially reopening within this phase.
He, however, strongly recommended that states conduct risk assessment to ensure all schools were at a level of compliance and create a monitoring mechanism to assess, create, and monitor this level of preparedness.
According to him, for the meantime, all day-care and educational institutions were to remain closed to in-classes until this level of risk was assessed.
He said if there would be opening of schools, it must be staged and preferably carried out in phases to ensure that this did not pose a risk to the general public and in particular to vulnerable groups that might end up getting infected by students going back home.
Some States have already announced reopening of schools. One of such states is Lagos, where the Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu ordered tertiary institutions to reopen on 14 September and primary and secondary schools, 21 September.
Also, the Federal Government has given the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) the green light to start making plans to reopen its orientation camps nationwide.
Aliyu said the task force was in the process of developing “strict guidelines” to forestall the outbreak of infections when NYSC camps reopened.
“The NYSC is to consolidate on safety measures currently being put in place and start preparing for the reopening of orientation camps when educational institutions open.
“We are in the process of developing strict guidelines to ensure there is no outbreak of COVID-19 when this process starts,” he said.
The orientation camps across the country were shut in March as part of measures to curb the spread of COVID-19.