As announced earlier by the Acting Prime Minister, the face to face classes for Early Childhood Education (ECE) to Year 7 will resume from Monday, 7 February 2022.
Minister for Education, Heritage and Arts, Premila Kumar said “this long-awaited announcement comes after our students from years 8 to 13 have settled in well in schools. Parents of ECE to Year 7 students have been requesting for the opening of schools for these students.
This decision was taken after a lot of consideration and taking into account evidence, and discussions, as well as clearance from the Ministry of Health and Medical Services.”
“The Ministry has been following student attendance for Years 8 to 13 since schools resumed a week ago. As the week progressed, relatively high rate of student attendance was seen ranging from an overall average of 63% to 75%,” said Minister Kumar.
“There is less COVID related absenteeism in our teachers and teacher attendance remains high which is very reassuring.”
Minister Kumar said that these figures are giving the Ministry reassurance that all the preparation undertaken by the schools is working as anticipated, and teachers and students’ health can be well managed in school.
“ In many countries globally where schools are operating during the pandemic, children are more likely to catch COVID-19 in the community than in schools. It is no different for Fiji.”
The recent announcement made by the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, reveals that there is a reduction in COVID cases in Fiji. The medical data currently shows that Fiji has been through the worst phase of the third wave of COVID-19. There is a sustained decrease in the number of COVID-19 related admissions in our hospitals.
According to the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, UNICEF and WHO, children are at a lower risk of severe illness. This is even more applicable to our young children, who are at a lower risk.
“The need for all children to get back to school and for us to navigate a safe path back to ensuring a brighter future for our children needs to start now,” said Minister Kumar.
Minister Kumar explained that the reopening of schools is based on multiple layers of protection in the schools, with adherence to COVID-19 safe conditions. However, the Minister urged parents and the community leaders to have stronger oversight on COVID-19 safe household and community-wide practices.
“All schools that were used as evacuation centres over the past few weeks have been decontaminated and cleared by the MHMS. As an additional layer of support and reassurance the Ministry of Health and Medical Services and our staff are carried out another round of decontamination in these schools. I hope this will give further assurance to parents that schools are well prepared to receive children,” said the Minister.
The Ministry reiterates that parents, guardians and the community need to unite to observe strict COVID-19 safe protocols and by doing this, we are protecting our students and helping them to attend school in person safely.