Reopening Of Schools May Have To Wait, Says FG

By Uche Mbah

The Nigerian Center For Disease Control, NCDC, has said that poor perception of the activities of the center and skepticism about the real situation of COVID 19 is responsible for the delay in the announcement of school resumption in the country. This was announced in a recent webinar by the Head of the NCDC’s Risk Communication, Yahya Disu.

The webinar was hosted by Plan International Nigeria’s Country Director, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, with cohosts from the European Union.

According to him, “The risk perception by the public is still very low and it’s because our population structure consists mostly of youth who may have the disease and not have symptoms. Re-opening schools will further spread the disease. If there is good level of compliance, then we could consider school reopening”. he noted that children will run the risk of contracting the disease and spreading it because of the prevailing cold weather occasioned by the rainy season. Cold conditions increase the possibility of flu, which is one of the triggering symptoms of COVID 19.

“School children are likely not going to comply and it could spread the disease among them as the majority of our pupils go to school in vehicles and the transport sector is known to have a poor record of compliance.”

Part of the decision of the panelists was that online learning platforms should be fully developed by the federal government. But the cost implications, according to them, is the loss of jobs of many private teachers and others who cannot migrate to the new platform.

“Private schools have stopped paying teachers, it increases poverty in the long run. Sources of livelihood for the teacher is therefore cut off. The budget submitted to the National Assembly shows a cut in education. We should rather look for ways to get more money into education,”  Head of Business Development, Action Aid Nigeria, Mr. Andrew Mamedu, who was one of the panelists said.