
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service(GES) Prof. Opoku Amankwah has strongly defended the government’s decision not to shut down schools following the outbreak of COVID-19 in some senior high schools across the country.
There have been incessant calls from various interest groups with the latest being the National Council Of Parent Teacher Associations of Ghana, urging government to close down schools to curb the spread of the virus but the government has dismissed the calls.
Fifty-five (55) students of the Accra Girls Senior High School have tested positive for COVID-19 and there are reports of the outbreak of the virus in other schools.
However, the government says these confirmed cases are not enough to cause the closure of all senior high schools as the students prepare to write the West African Senior High School Certificate Examination(WASSCE).
Address a press conference in Accra Tuesday, the DG of GES, Prof. Opoku Amankwah stressed that closing down the schools will be a disaster.
“Closure of schools from the health point of view we believe is not the best option. Our best option is to keep them if there is an issue. Because if we decide to let them go into the bigger society then we are going to rather close down the entire country. If we have a thousand students going different ways into different homes and let’s say they are infected we can’t be sure of what will happen to the larger community. We are talking about 550,000 students i.e gold students plus the final year students. If we decide to let them all go I think we’ll be causing disaster to ourselves.”
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