Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
Teachers Unions in Ghana have signaled their opposition to the reopening of schools amid the coronavirus.
Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, had in a live Instagram chat, revealed that Government was considering reopening schools soon.
In an Instagram live Q&A session with Ghanaians on Monday May 18, the Minister says, “The gov’t is looking at reopening schools. The President is engaging with stakeholders to know the way forward.”
But GNAT, NAGRAT, CCT-Gh, TEWU, in a letter to the Ghana Education Service (GES), said considering the age and exuberance of their students, one cannot be sure that they will adhere strictly to the Covid-19 protocols, hence the fear that the disease may spread in the schools.
In the letter jointly signed by President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu, President of CCT-GH, King Awudu Ali, Acting General Secretary of TEWU, Mark D. Korankye, and General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas T. Musah, the Unions observed how Covid-19 was still wreaking havoc in Ghana and around the world.
The Unions say the various measures the students are supposed to observe such as hand washing under clean running water, alcohol-based hand sanitizers for sanitizing of hands by both teachers and students, face or nose masks to be used by teachers and students, are all not available in the schools.
Mr Oppong Nkrumah says Government was considering providing face masks to schools.
But the Unions also raised concerns on social distancing, saying class sizes and dormitory population are still large, and as such they do not want to expose their “teachers and students to the Covid-19 pandemic, with its attendant sorrows and gnashing of teeth.”
By Melvin Tarlue