MOE should review decision to restart school in Sept

13 Aug 2021

KOTA KINABALU: DAP Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin today called upon the Ministry of Education (MOE) to take heed of the public voices and to seriously review the decision to restart school session this coming September.

He said the MOE must learn from the experience and complications faced at the beginning of this year and not repeat the same mistakes.

As the Covid-19 pandemic situation continues to worsen, the Ministry must not act hastily in reopening schools before making sure they are truly ready, properly, he added.

“Hundreds of students ended up queueing up for Covid-19 testing following the schools reopening on March 1, and I believe that this incident is still fresh in everyone’s memory.

"Looking back at the data at that point in time when schools restarted in early March, the number of new cases in Kota Kinabalu per day remained at a single-digit; then on April 22, there were 42 new cases.

“Compare that with the daily new cases right now in Kota Kinabalu. Yesterday alone there were 635 cases! Will there be any trend of decline within the next three weeks? If schooling were to restart at this time, I foresee that there will be Covid-19 clusters attributable to schools in less than two weeks’ time!” he said in a statement today.

While noting that more teachers would have been vaccinated by now, Chan stated that the Minister of Health Datuk Seri Adham Baba had on August 1 pointed out that there are still about 85,000 teachers in this country who have not received their jabs.

“The Minister of Health had said that all teachers are expected to receive at least one dose of vaccine before school starts in September but that does not seem to guarantee anything at all.

"Is one dose of vaccine protection enough to ensure that our children will be safe from Covid-19? What about other players in the education sector? School cafeteria operators, bus drivers, and Security guards? Have they all been vaccinated?”

As far as students are concerned, most of them are still exposed to the danger as they have not been vaccinated - the Ministry of Health, till now, is still studying whether it is suitable for students between 12 and 17 to be vaccinated.

"It can be seen that the Ministry of Health is not ready for the important decision to restart schools. At the same time, MOE should postpone the school start date.

“From Sept 1 to the end of the school year on December 11th, there are only 10 weeks of classes. In case where Covid-19 school clusters were to form, then the school will be forced to close for two weeks, and all will have to undergo testing for the school to reopen. After these cycles of closure and reopening, how much time is actually spent on teaching without interruption?” he questioned.

Since there are only 10 weeks left, Chan suggested that the MOE might as well think about how to strengthen the implementation of home-based learning and teaching (PdPR).

“For example, the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia ought to look into greatly increasing the internet speeds at the homes of teachers and students, the Ministry of Finance look into providing subsidies or to absorb charges to provide free internet to B40 families, and the Ministry of Rural Development to look into improving communication equipment in the suburbs and countryside.

"There are 500,000 teachers in the country, and the number of primary and secondary school students is about 5.4 million. Together with teachers, the total is about 5.9 million, accounting for about 18 per cent of the country's total population. The education sector should not be but to risk of Covid-19 infections, otherwise the consequences would be disastrous."