FCTA Directs Schools To Resume October 12

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa, has directed “all Schools within the Federal Capital Territory to re-open for the first term of the 2020/2021 academic session on Monday, 12th of October 2020.”

This was made known in a statement on Thursday by the Federal Capital Territory Administration’s (FCTA) Chief Press Secretary, Anthony Ogunleye.

Meanwhile, the FCT Minister asked boarding students to resume on Sunday, 11th of October.

“Malam Bello noted that the decision to reopen the schools was taken based on the directive from the Federal Ministry of Education that states should work out modalities for the safe re-opening of schools and after pain staking consultations with various stakeholder groups in the education sector.

“According to the Minister, these groups include the FCT Parents Teachers Association, the Health and Human Services Secretariat of the FCTA, the Nigeria Union of Teachers, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Nigeria Union of Teachers amongst others.

“Malam Bello pointed out that the collaboration of these stakeholder groups ensured the safe re-opening of secondary schools to conduct the terminal examinations for JSS 3 and SSS 3 students in August without a single case of COVID-19 reported. Based on this, the Minister said We are therefore convinced that we can safely re-open our schools on the aforementioned dates,” the statement partly read.

However, the minister stressed that stakeholders needed to educate their wards on the public health advisory on covid-19 so they could avoid contracting it.

” These, he said, include regular washing of hands with soap under running water, use of sanitizer, use of facemasks while maintaining physical distancing,” it stated.

On her part, the Chairman of the FCT School Resumption Committee, Dr Fatima Abdulrahman “said that on resumption on the 11th of October, students will use the first week for revision and the second week to write the second term examinations which were suspended following the sudden closure of all schools at the onset of the pandemic.

“The first term of the 2020/2021 session will conclude on the 18th of December. This essentially means that there will be no third term in the 2019/2020 academic session,” she said.

Among other things, the FCTA maintained that any School that violated the prescribed health guidelines would face appropriate sanctions, including closure.