It is official: primary and secondary schools in Lagos State will be resuming academic activities for 2020-21 academic session on Monday September 21, 2020.
The State’s Ministry of Education, Office of Education Quality Assurance, has released the approved Lagos State school calendar for year 2020/2021 session, which announces the commencement of the academic session on Monday.
There have reports and counter reports on the reopening of Lagos schools, but the latest release puts paid to all other contrary reports.
The time table stipulates that both public and private schools below tertiary level will resume First Term academic activities on Monday 21st September, 2020 while the term runs through Friday 18th December, 2020.
The Second Term starts on Monday 4th January, 2021 and runs through Friday, 16th April, 2021 while students will resume for Third Term on Tuesday 4th May, 2021 and close on Friday 6th August, 2021.
While enjoining all public and private schools in the state to adhere strictly to the harmonised school calendar, the Director General, Office of Education Quality Assurance, Mrs Abiola Seriki-Ayeni, urged school leaders to have a qualitative health and safety plan that will help protect students, teachers and workers as schools reopen in the state.
In a statement signed by the Head, Public Affairs, OEQA, Olaniran Emmanuel, the DG said, “It is not enough to reopen but to keep staying opened since some schools all over the world had to shut down after reopening due to a spike in the pandemic. All schools must make efforts to comply with these requirements, not just for the improvement of the overall school operations but for safe reopening for academic activities to support the Lagos State Government’s quest for a full return”.
While advising schools to have a flexible teaching and learning plans where students and teachers who feel sick can teach or learn from home via available online platforms, Seriki-Ayeni said schools must strive to avoid any COVID-19 infection in their school.
Abiola Seriki-Ayeni further advised that teachers, students and visitors must wear face mask at all time, observe physical distancing, regularly wash hands with soap under running water and maintain high standard of personal hygiene in the school premises.
She emphasised that schools must have an isolation/holding bay to care for medical emergencies should students come up with symptoms such as cough, headache, catarrh, difficulty in breathing, sneezing and fever.
She explained that the measures put in place by the Lagos State Government through the Office of Education Quality Assurance is for public and private schools in Lagos State to register online with the OEQA, take the School Self-risk Assessment and take the online training course to obtain reopening clearance for academic activities on the OEQA website.
According to her, this will help the Office of Education Quality Assurance to determine the level of preparedness as well as guide schools on what they need to put in place for a safe reopening. She implored school leaders to embrace new learning style like outdoor classes, staggered attendance, platooning or alternative attendance among others in collaboration with parents in a safe and secure environment.
