The Ghana Education Service (GES) has assured parents and guardians of final year Senior High school (SHS) students in the country that it will do everything humanly possible to protect all children against COVID-19.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the GES, Mrs Monica Ankrah, gave the assurance on the sideline of a mass disinfection exercise in the Accra Girls’ Senior High School, in the national capital.
She said that the school authorities had also been charged with the task of ensuring that, the students together with the teaching and non-teaching staff members observed strictly the COVID-19 safety protocols.
The exercise, which was a collaboration between the Ministry of Education (MoE), and Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL), was undertaken yesterday, and it lasted for about five hours.
According to the Greater Accra Regional GES Director, the lives of the students were a priority and encouraged parents to have confidence in the GES and school authorities to “take very good care of their children.”
She also assured the teaching and non-teaching staff members that the GES would continue to implement measures that would protect them from the virus.
While empathising with parents gripped with panic and fear, following reported cases of COVID-19 in some of the SHSs, she indicated that the best option was for the infected students to be isolated and treated.
“In the wake of reported COVID-19 cases in some of the schools, the best thing to do which we [at GES] are doing is isolating and treating those infected by the virus, instead of sending them home where there is the high risk of exposing them to their families and others to the virus,” she said.
Mrs Ankrah disclosed that many of the students who contracted the virus had recovered and had been discharged back to their various schools.
She reiterated that the GES would continue to extend support to the SHSs in the form of providing them with nose masks, alcohol-based hand sanitisers, liquid soaps among others.
Mrs Ankrah seized the opportunity to appeal to political parties to refrain from politicising the COVID-19 in the schools.
“We should all be seen supporting the fight against the pandemic in the country, cautioning that “we won’t allow politics on the various campuses of the SHSs,” she stated.
The Head of Vector Control Unit, ZGL, Reverend Ebenezer Kwame Addae, explained that the reason for the disinfection was to make the school’s environment and its facilities safe for the students and the staff members.
He said that regular disinfection together with the strict practising of the COVID-19 preventive protocols was key in battling the virus.
He, therefore, advised corporate Ghana to engage in regular disinfection against the virus.