Headmasters and Headmistresses of Senior High Schools (SHSs) and Junior High Schools (JHSs) in the Ashanti Region have given assurance of their readiness to support government to enforce the COVID-19 safety protocols in their schools to protect the final-year students who will be sitting their exit examinations.
This came to the fore when Zoomlion Ghana Limited last Wednesday extended its nationwide disinfection of SHSs and JHSs to the Ashanti Region.
The exercise, a collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Zoomlion Ghana Limited, formed part of measures to protect students and pupils in SHSs and JHSs respectively from contracting COVID-19.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 10th address to the nation on measures on COVID-19 directed final-year students of both JHS and SHSs to go back to school.
In the case of final-year SHS students and Form Two Gold Track Students, they are expected to report back to school on Monday, June 22, while final-year JHS pupils are expected to resume on June 29.
The president’s directive is to allow final-years of SHSs and JHSs to be prepared to sit their exit examinations.
The exercise in the Ashanti Region started in earnest on Tuesday, June 16, and was aimed at getting rid of germs, bacteria and viruses in the schools.
Among the schools which benefited from the exercise were the Adventist Senior High School, Our Lady of Apostles School, Asem Cluster of Schools, Atonsu Bethel Presby Experimental School among others.
Addressing journalists at the Atonsu Bethel Presby Experimental School, the Headmaster of the School, Rev James Dapaah, indicated that his school was earnestly putting plans in place for the re-opening.
According to him, his school has 129 final-year pupils, adding that in observing the social distancing protocol, the pupils would be divided into groups and would be accommodated in the Form 1 and 2 classrooms.
He disclosed that his outfit had decided to put the pupils in groups of 25 to ensure that the social/physical distancing protocol was observed to protect them against COVID-19.
At the Asem Cluster of Schools in the Asokwa Municipal Assembly of Kumasi, the Headmaster of the school, Samuel Asare Kwarteng, hinted that his school was counting on the support of the government to make available the needed personal protection equipment.
The Administrator of Our Lady of Apostles, Madam Anne Andoh, which school also benefited from the exercise, disclosed that her school as part of measures to contain the spread of the COVID-19 had engaged the services of a nurse who would be tasked to take temperatures of very students and staff members.
“And instead of 28 pupils in each class, we have resolved to reduce the number to 14,” she added.