School children cleaning their school on first day of reopening
Schools across the Upper East Region reopened on January 18, 2021, in line with President Akufo-Addo’s directive to get all school children back to school.
DAILY GUIDE observed that on the first day at school, a lot of students in the private sector schools wore face masks to school, apparently given to them by their parents. The few children who did not bring face masks from home were provided with some by the school heads.
The compounds of most private schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality, for example, were cleaned already and so some class teachers were seen taking their students through questions from their last terminal examination. It is very likely that most private schools will start academic activities this week.
On the other hand, most of the school children in the public sector came to school without a face mask on their first day at school, after the closure of schools due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Public school heads were waiting for government’s consignment of PPE, sanitisers, and face masks, and so the school children were seen walking and cleaning their school compound without mask on.
Meanwhile, the Upper East Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Dzotsi says the government through the Ghana Health Service has attached every school in the region to a specific health facility closer to them and assigned nurses to some specific schools.
“We also have our Rapid Response Team which is also on ready so that if a case is suspected and reported in the schools, they can quickly be detected, isolated, and managed appropriately,” he stated.
The Vice Chairman of the Association of Private Schools in the region, Robert Atia, says all school heads and proprietors were adequately briefed, and so they have been interacting with the parents of their students on the dos and don’ts and the COVID-19.
He hinted that despite the education, some parents still allowed their children to come to school without face mask.
At the time of filing this report, trucks of PPEs and others had started arriving in the Bolgatanga Municipality.
FROM: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga