Lagos, Osun and Kogi States have fixed dates for the resumption of schools. Schools were shut down across Nigeria for over four months since the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, with only students in exit classes resuming in early August to sit for their exams. Lagos State has slated September 14 for the resumption of tertiary institutions while making plans to reopen primary and secondary schools on September 21. The Osun State government announced September 21 for resumption of an abridged third term for the 2019\/2020 academic session, which is expected to end on October 30, with a new academic session scheduled to commence on November 9. Tertiary institutions owned by the State are also expected to reopen. The Kogi State government also announced that schools at all levels will resume on September 14. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though widespread\nconcern has been raised over the reopening of schools in the light of the COVID-19\npandemic, the bigger concern among Nigerians is what appears to be the absence\nof a coherent government response to learning and education in the country.\nLots of Nigerians and parents have raised concerns that the shut down of\nschools could have serious long-term effects on the nation\u2019s education\nstandards and education generally. Sceptics even go as far as to say that\ngovernment\u2019s incoherence is deliberate in the light of paucity of funds. On the\nother hand, a few are cautious about schools reopening, warning of the\npossibility of further spread of COVID-19. Indeed, Minister of Education, Adamu\nAdamu was curiously quoted to have said that if he had his way, schools would\nremain shut into 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Olusiji Sowande,\nCo-ordinator of the Lagos State zone of the Academic Staff Union of\nUniversities (ASUU) reportedly cautioned against the reopening of schools,\nciting poor school infrastructure and facilities as possible obstacles to\nsocial distancing that COVID-19 requires. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to\nProf. Sowande, this situation has laid bare, the infrastructural deficiencies\nin the education and health sectors. He also criticised the Federal Government\nfor not providing bailout funds for universities, as it had done for select\nbusinesses in other sectors. In addition, the Presidential Taskforce (PTF) on\nCOVID-19 while appreciating the calls and preparations for reopening institutions\nof learning, has asked stakeholders to be guided by the experiences of other countries\nwho have opened schools and had to shut down owing to increased numbers of\ninfections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the health\nconcern over the resumption of schools may be an important factor, stakeholders\nare more worried about government schools with limited infrastructure and\nfacilities. It will be recalled that the Federal Ministry of Education released\na manual in July for the reopening of schools, which is expected to serve as a\nguide to prepare teachers, students and other stakeholders for the resumption\nof academic activities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lagos, Osun and Kogi States have fixed dates for the resumption of schools. Schools were shut down across Nigeria for over four months since the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, with only students in exit classes resuming in early August to sit for their exams. Lagos State has slated September […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-1673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-states-set-to-reopen-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1673"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1684,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1673\/revisions\/1684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}