3rd September, 2020
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
The Federal Government on Thursday told state governments and school administrators to be prepared for the full reopening of schools.
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 daycare, 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 daycares 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.