The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) on Thursday threatened to shut down any school violating the Covid-19 guidelines aimed at ensuring the safety of exiting students who recently resumed preparatory to the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
Chairman, FCT ministerial task force on Covid-19 enforcement, Ikharo Attah who led the team to inspect some schools in the nation’s capital, told journalists that the administration could not afford to expose the students to the danger of contracting the killer virus; hence all schools must stick to the guidelines for reopening of schools.
Attah said the FCT minister, Muhammad Bello has warned heads of schools within the territory that the government would not risk the lives of students and teachers.
He warned that any school found to be violating the protocols would be shut down and its students transferred to other serious schools, while the management of such schools would be given the appropriate sanctions.
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“Any school that fails to comply, we will do everything within our power to safeguard the students. And such schools will be shut down through legal processes and the students will have to go and write exams somewhere else, pending when the school complies with the safety guidelines and those responsible for the school mismanagement will be brought to book.
He noted that most of the public and private schools his team visited to ascertain their level of compliance have shown about 80 percent preparedness to the safety of students and teachers in their respective schools, by providing adequate handwashing points, sanitisers and decontamination of the environment.
Attah particularly commended the compliance level at Ragina Pasis and Stella Maris, private schools, Government Science and Technical College and some of the public schools within the city centre.
He, however, frowned at the attitude of the heads of Model Junior Secondary School, located in Asokoro, for their failure to adequately prepare the school environment before the resumption.
“From our own point, it is encouraging in the sense that the schools we have been to, both government and private, if we assess them at a point of average, you will score them about 85 percent preparedness. They have complied. You could see handwashing points, hand sanitiser and there was also social distancing in their classrooms,” he said.
