Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman Manu has shot down calls to close down Senior High Schools over the spread of COVID-19.
There are calls by the National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations of Ghana for the government to close down schools over some reported cases of COVID-19 some senior high schools.
The association in a statement on Monday, July 13, 2020, called for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) to be postponed following the outbreak of COVID-19 in schools.
According to the association, the call is “to avert further spread of the coronavirus among our children and staff.”
But Mr Agyeman Manu says that is not the best option now as he describes it as a defeatist and coward person’s approach.
“Who knows when this disease is going to go away from the world? We haven’t got the vaccine yet so what can we do? so closing down the schools is defeatist. It’s a coward person’s approach and that’s not what we are going to do.
“We will fight the disease. We will do things that will solve some of the challenges that we have and protect everybody; ourselves and or children,”
Dr Patrick Kumah Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service has revealed out of a total of 400,000 students who are in schools, only 111 students from 34 schools across the country have tested positive from Covid-19.
“It is important that we do surveillance. We have systems in place that would be able to pick them quickly and identify them.
“Besides, we just had of the more than 400,000 students who have gone back to school, we are recording about 110,111 cases, sporadic cases across the country from 34 schools. So I don’t think there is enough fear for us to rush into anything.”
