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Reopening schools for third term : Govt. yet to make final decision

02 Nov 2020

  • Date to be decided end of this week
The Ministry of Education will sit at a crucial meeting this week to decide the date to reopen state schools for the third term, The Morning learnt. With the quarantine curfew extended up to 9 November for the whole of Western Province, Kurunegala town, and Kuliyapitiya and Eheliyagoda police areas, the Ministry of Education is to reconsider the school reopening date. “The date of reopening schools for the third term will be reconsidered following a meeting that is to take place between the Education Ministry, health service authorities, and the Covid-19 Eradication Committee chaired by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa. We will be able to communicate the exact date of reopening schools by the end of this week,” State Minister of Women and Child Development, Preschool and Primary Education, School Infrastructure, and Education Services Piyal Nishantha De Silva told The Morning. Given the developing health emergency situation in the backdrop of preventing the spread of Covid-19 in the country, the Secretary to the Ministry of Education last week had requested guidelines and any further recommendations from the Ministry of Health to be followed when schools commence for the third term. State schools were originally set to reopen for the third term on 9 November, following the conclusion of the GCE Advanced Level (A/L) examination that was held over the past four weeks. It is also learnt that the Epidemiology Unit of the Ministry of Health too had cautioned against the reopening of schools in the coming days without assessing the evolving situation.   Director General of Health Services (DGHS) Dr. Asela Gunawardena noted that a final decision is to be taken in consultation with the National Operation Centre for Prevention of Covid-19 Outbreak (NOCPCO) and the Covid-19 Eradication Committee. The health guidelines too will be updated accordingly as the virulence of the strains presently in circulation originated from the two main clusters, and the subclusters displayed high transmissibility due to high viral loads than the previous strains that were circulating, according to the whole genomic sequencing carried out by the Department of Immunology and Molecular Medicine and the Allergy, Immunology, and Cell Biology Unit of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura over the virus strains that are currently in circulation within the country.  


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