Despite the Federal Government’s decision to review schools reopening on January 18 the Bauchi State government on Tuesday insisted schools in the state will reopen for the first term of the 2020/2021 academic session next Monday.
The Minister of Education, Malam Adamu Adamu, had on Monday revealed at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing that the Federal Government was reviewing the Monday, 18th January school resumption date earlier scheduled.
However, reacting to this in a statement made available on Tuesday, Bauchi State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Aliyu Tilde, said all schools in the state would reopen on Monday, 18th January irrespective of any review made by the Federal Government.
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The state government’s insistence on the date, according to Tilde, was due to the fact that no single COVID-19 case had been reported in any schools in the state so far.
He noted that any attempt to change the 2020/2021 session’s resumption date due to the fear of the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to the mutilation of the session as witnessed in the 2019/2020 session.
“To date, not a single case of COVID-19 infection is reported in our schools. Therefore, regardless of any review that may take place in some quarters, Bauchi State Ministry of Education is determined to reopen schools in the state on January 18th, unfailingly, as earlier decided by the State Executive Council.
“The 2020/2021 school calendar starts that day. Unless we stand resolute on our school plan for the year, the session will be mutilated by the fear of COVID-19 as was 2019/2020,” Tilde stated.
In view of the state government’s decision to go ahead with the school resumption date, the commissioner called on parents, teachers, students, and other stakeholders to prepare for the resumption.
While assuring that Bauchi State would avoid COVID-19 by using its familiar protocol of face masks, social distance, sanitation, and testing in schools, Dr. Tilde submitted that schools would not be closed “except under a resoundingly imminent emergency.”
