… assures parents of safety of their wards
Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi on Sunday, inspected some secondary schools in the three senatorial zones of the state ahead of Monday's resumption date for students in terminal classes.
The Governor was accompanied on the tour by the Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Evangelist Foluso Daramola and other top officials of the ministry.
The inspection according to the Governor was carried out to evaluate the state of preparedness of the schools especially in respect of the forthcoming West African Secondary Certificate Examinations and how to ensure safety of the participating students and teachers.
The Governor said it was important to educate authorities of the schools across the State on how to safeguard the lives of the Students/Teachers by having necessary safety measures in place before resumption.
Dr Fayemi emphasized that the schools must ensure that the sitting arrangement of students is done to conform with Covid-19 protocol for physical distancing and to allow teachers have unhindered movement around the classrooms.
According to the Governor, “I’m still not completely satisfied, some principals are better prepared than others which was the whole point of going round today so that all the schools have their Veronica buckets, thermometers, sanitizers and arranged in such a manner to allow for social distancing, some have done it better than others.
What will happen is that the Honourable Commissioner and his team would still undertake some activities between now and tomorrow morning just to be sure that we get it right.
“Although we have a week before the examination starts, I would rather this is tidied up before then so we have a proforma form that is being handed to all the school principals so that they precisely let us know who the covid-19 coordinator is in their school. Also the arrangements they’ve been trained to observe and you know we are also testing some of them randomly just to make sure that we are reasonably safe.
"We can’t test all the teachers, we would have loved to as well as the students who are sitting for the exams but we would do as much random testing as possible before the 17th of August.
While commending some of the principals for their adequate preparation for resumption of academic activities in their schools, the governor berated some of them for their attitude of non-conformity to prescribed standard.
He however urged the Principals and school authorities to ensure that the school environment is made conducive for learning, assuring that proper safety measures would be put in place for the resumption of the students sitting for WAEC.
He assured parents that his administration would ensure reasonable care of their children while in school adding that they will maintain strict protocol for safety.
Among schools inspected were Isan High School, Isan Ekiti; Government Science College, Ayede Ekiti; Government College, Oye Ekiti, Methodist Girls Grammar School, Ifaki Ekiti; Ekiti Baptist High School Igede Ekiti and Christ’s School, Ado Ekiti among others.