Uganda to discuss school reopening terms

Kampala. The Ministry of Education has said Cabinet is sitting on Monday to discuss conditions that the Ministry of Health and the Covid-19 taskforce have given for reopening schools.
While receiving a donation of 4,000 litres of mosquito repelling paint on Friday, Mr John Chrysostom Muyingo, the State Minister in charge of Higher Education, said the Health ministry and the Covid taskforce have given schools conditions they must fulfil before they are allowed to reopen.
“We want schools to ensure that the environment for our children is safe, secure and healthy. We want to ensure that our children are not sick and if any of them falls sick, the institution will take maximum care of the child,” Mr Muyingo said.
Asked to name the conditions that schools have been given, he said it was too early to divulge them since Cabinet had not yet discussed them.
However, the minister hinted that schools are required to renovate buildings, build new ones to decongest, provide facemasks for all students, adding that they are considering having all teachers and students checked for the virus before allowing them at school.

Reopening for candidates halted
Asked about the earlier proposal to have students in final years and candidate classes to resume first, Mr Muyingo said it was not possible, especially for primary and secondary schools because many of them do not have accommodation facilities where students would be easily confined.
He said the phased approach they were now considering is to begin with the 100 tertiary institutions and 50 universities because those have boarding facilities.
Mr Muyingo said they cannot start with candidates because it will affect the promotion of other students.
“The Ministry of Education is planning for everybody. We do not want anyone to be left behind. When a student completes P.7, what happens to S.1? That is why we are planning for a phased reopening,” the minister said.
Japenese paint manufacturer Plascon Kansai donated the 4,000 litres of anti-mosquito paint and 20,000 facemasks to the Education Ministry ahead of the reopening.
Mr Tyron Immelmann, a company official, said they also donated additional paint values at Shs66m to 20,000 mosques across the country.
Uganda Revenue Authority staff and Wazalendo Sacco also donated to the Covid taskforce Shs 85m and Shs10 million, respectively