Educational Institutions Get Ready to Re-open As Disinfection Exercises Takes place

Preparations are underway for the reopening of 16 tertiary institutions.There is currently a comprehensive strategy underway to disinfect the schools and make them safe and secure for reopening.

The plan bills the 16 institutions for disinfection in the week to come.

Meanwhile, in collaboration with Zoomlion Ghana Ltd, a disinfection exercise was carried out yesterday at the University of Ghana in Accra under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Education.

When the strategy was launched at the University of Ghana, Education Minister Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh said it followed a directive passed by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to fumigate and disinfect all tertiary and second-cycle institutions, before the final year students return to prepare and complete their exit exams.

He said the ministry is dedicated and willing to help Zoomlion and other waste management companies in disinfecting and fumigating the country’s primary , secondary and tertiary educational institutions.

Dr Prempeh tasked all heads of educational institutions and municipal / district chief executives with communicating with the respective educational directors and controlling the exercises in their jurisdictions schools.

Professor Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, said that the management of educational institutions would closely monitor Zoomlion’s disinfection and fumigation exercises to ensure that they are successful and effective.

As part of the fight against the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, similar exercises were performed in governmental institutions and agencies.

Prof. Owusu, who doubles as Ghana’s chairman of vice-chancellors, urged Zoomlion to pursue the exercise in order to achieve the target it was set for.

Zoomlion Ghana Ltd’s Managing Director (MD), Mrs Florence Larbi, has given assurance that the company will do a good job to help curb the spread of the pandemic.

At the recent Minister’s Weekly Briefing on COVID-19 to shed light on the gradual easing of restrictions, the Minister of Education said tertiary institutions will reopen to final year students on 12th June, for academic research to start and end on July 24th.

Final examinations, he said, will take place from 27 July until 21 August

He said SHSs would reopen to final-year students on June 22 for six weeks of academic work until July 31, this year. After which they would write their final examinations from August 3rd to September 4th this year.

Meanwhile, the second-year Gold Track students would also be in school for six weeks, starting from June 22 to July 31, when they will go on holiday, he said.

In the case of final-year students at JHSs, Dr Prempeh said they would be in school for 11 weeks for academic work from June 29 to September 11, after which they would write this year’s Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) from September 14 to September 18.