Only Forty-eight Schools Have Been Given Approval to Reopen

The Ministry of Education has granted approval for only a few schools, at various academic levels that meet specific requirements, to be reopened whenever they are ready to do so.  Having set October fourth as the date for the resumption of hybrid instructions, a combination of onsite and remote learning, applications were submitted to the ministry which were then vetted based on several criteria.  Those factors include the physical readiness of the compound, as well as the number of teachers who have been vaccinated against COVID-19.  Of the sixty-three schools that applied, forty-eight have been given the green light.  The fact that the vaccination rollout for students between the ages of twelve and seventeen has seen a little under fifty percent of that population being inoculated within the past month, is a step in the right direction, says Chief Executive Officer Dian Maheia.

Dian Maheia

Dian Maheia,CEO, Ministry of Education

“I think that this is a good reflection of the past month’s work, definitely.  I think the same way our teacher vaccination rate is now somewhere close to ninety percent, I think the fact that within just the past few weeks they’ve been so many Pfizer vaccines given to the twelve to seventeen-year-olds, that’s very encouraging.  We do want to say though that we are not saying that a student cannot return to onsite schooling if he or she is not vaccinated.  Our goal is, we do not have a vaccination mandate.  What we do have though is a mask mandate and I need to say that because what we have seen in other countries and what even the preliminary studies are showing is that wearing your masks properly, consistently, is key to reducing transmission especially in schools.”