There is growing concerns from parents whose wards will be going back to school in a few days but have complained of not seeing any health manual from the Ghana Health Service and for that matter the Ghana Education Service, GES.
A cursory look at the Ghana Education Service website shows that the COVID- 19 guidelines for schools reopening was posted on June 22, 2020 and spells out the do’s and don’ts of the children whiles in schools including the distance to maintain. There is another general guidelines tagged “Schools Guidelines for Reopening” and spells out what should be put in place for the safe return of the children.
These guidelines were developed by the Ghana Health Service as promised at the onset of the pandemic in Ghana and forwarded to the Ghana Education Service.
Unfortunately, when contacted a source at the Ghana Education Service said even though the guidelines are available they have not been distributed to the schools and that hopefully, it would be done before the reopening of schools.
But on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show, some parents who participated in a zoom conversation on the schools’ reopening said they had not seen any document or material from the Ghana Health Service or The Ghana Education Service.
Bailon Afful, a parent said “ I have personally not sited any document yet but we hope this time round the health authorities will do the right thing because these are much lower grade students and so attention and focus must be intensified than the upper grades children. Those are the few concerns that some of us are entertaining right now. Even prior to reopening of SHS I was involved with the group that did the study and even after the reopening we found several infractions regarding the health and safety orientation that was not given to teachers and students that were going back to school and the nose masks that were supposed to be provided and the veronica buckets some of them came way later”.
According to Bailon, these are legitimate concerns parents have and must be addressed as soon as possible.
The guidelines on the GES website however comes in a text form and not any pictorial presentation which can best be communicated to children.
By Richard Bright Addo|3news.com|Ghana
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