The Nigeria Union of Teachers,NUT, Bayelsa State wing, has commended the state government’s efforts in the reopening of schools across the state.
The state’s NUT Chairman, Comrade Kala-Ama Tonpre, gave the commendation recently in Yenagoa while relaying his findings as a member of the state school reopening committee shortly after their tour to monitor level of compliance by schools in the state.
Tonpre hinted that eleven public schools in different parts of the state had been fumigated in line with NCDC guidelines,restating the commitment of the NUT to partner the state government in ensuring qualitative education and conducive learning environment for students.
He noted that though the state government would have loved to carry out the fumigation exercise in all public primary and secondary schools before the reopening, the committee chose to commence the exercise with the eleven state owned boarding schools across the eight local government areas of the state, following their status as special schools.
The NUT boss, who charged communities to compliment government’s drive towards ensuring safe reopening of schools, mentioned that there are a total of 192 public secondary and 547 public primary schools in the state, saying host communities of some of the schools should also mobilize their members for self- help reopening preparations in terms of fumigation and provision of some of the kits needed in the schools for the prevention of the spread of the novel covid-19 virus.
“Apart from fumigation, the government has provided soap, buckets, face masks and other PPEs for our public schools. Some communities can also help in providing the ones they can to compliment government efforts”, he said.
He stated that while the local government school reopening committees were monitoring compliance in their respective areas, the state central committee at the weekend monitored compliance in six secondary schools within Yenagoa metropolis, the state capital,saying the NUT and other members of the committee were satisfied with the level of compliance by the monitored schools, comprising public and private.
“This weekend we monitored level of reopening compliance in six secondary schools in Yenagoa.We saw them complying with the state government’s Covid-19 prevention protocols”, he noted.
“The government’s rule is that no class should take more than 15 students. We’re at BDGS, Yenagoa, St Jude’s Girls Secondary School also in Yenagoa and CSS Biogbolo.These three are public secondary schools. But we’re also in Teto School, Ala Montessori and Tari Pet which are private schools.We’re impressed with the level of compliance”, he added.

By: Ariwera Ibibo-Howells