The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa has appealed to parents to assist their children to comply with the necessary protocols outlined by government as they return to school to ensure their safety is not compromised.
According to him even though government had instituted a lot of measures to ensure the safety of all students, there was the need for parents to compliment these efforts.
“There is no need for any parent to prevent his or her ward from going to school to prepare and write their final exams. Government has put in place all the necessary measures to safeguard the children and it will be appropriate for parents to compliment this gesture,” he emphasised.
Speaking to the Ghanaian Times in a telephone conversation, Prof Amankwa said even though no one could force any parent to send his or her ward to school, it was important that the parents placed the development of the children above all other consideration.
He said government would not deliberately endanger the lives of the very student it had spent so much on, stressing that as a result, parents must do away with the fear factor and support them in safeguarding the welfare of the children.”
Outlining a number of measures put in place at the various schools, he said each student had been provided a dedicated desk with their names embossed on it and would be arranged spaciously in accordance with the social distancing protocols.
In addition, he said all the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including face masks, Veronica buckets, santisers, paper tissues and thermometer guns meant for the schools had been sent to the schools.
On parents who were contemplating keeping their wards and home and hiring private teachers to teach them, he said there was no guarantee that such arrangement would keep the children safe.
H explained that unless the private teachers to be hired by the parents lived under one roof with the students as well as their parents, the potential spread of the infection could not be stopped.
“Those parents who say they are afraid and for that matter will let their children stay home and get them private teachers to teach them, I want to know if they have the capacity to detect whether the teachers are infected or not?” she queried
Furthermore, he said even if the parents succeeded in that direction, it was important that they realised that their wards would still have to join their mates to write the exams.
By Cliff Ekuful
