The Oyo state COVID-19 Task Force on Tuesday announced the postponement of the planned resumption of Primary six, Junior Secondary School III and Senior Secondary School III students in the state.
The Task Force after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting declared that only teachers are now to resume on Monday, June 29 while the students resumption date will now be July 6.
Oyo state COVID-19 task force in a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Mr Taiwo Adisa, stated that the change in the resumption date was to enable it ascertain and review the state of preparedness of the schools ahead of the planned resumption.
The statement said the Commissioner for Education, Barrister Olasunkanmi Olaleye, and experts from the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) had been going round to determine compliance with the COVID-19 prevention protocols put in place by the schools.
According to the statement, “The team has since discovered that a space of one week was needed to enable the schools to test-run the facilities, especially the hand washing points and the security measures.”
“By the new arrangement, teachers are to resume to the schools on Monday June 29, 2020, while students in critical classes including Primary 6, JSS3 and SS3 will resume a week later on July 6, 2020,” it said The statement added, “As of Monday, June 22, no fewer than 372 heads of schools have been trained by the EOC on the management of the COVID-19 containment procedures, while each of the schools is to appoint an Incident Manager, who will ensure compliance with the approved COVID-19 protocol.
“Each student is expected to wear face masks, while the schools are to prepare well laid out hand washing spots to guarantee regular washing of hands by the students and teachers.”
“The Task Force also resolved that by July 15, the state government would have reviewed the situation with the schools and come to a conclusion whether the remaining classes would be able to resume or whether the students would have to wait to resume the new session in September 2020.”
