A former Minister of Education, Professor Chinwe Obaji, has advised the Federal Government not to yield to the pressure from a section of Nigerians, especially parents and private school owners, to reopen schools and allow SS3 students sit for the 2020 senior school certificate examinations.
She said the country is still unsafe going by the daily rise in reported cases of COVID-19 infections.
Mrs Obaji in an exclusive interview with Tribune Education said reopening schools at this time is like gambling with the lives of students and the generality of Nigerians.
According to her, it’s possible to lose two or more academic years and still fulfill one’s destiny.
“But if life is lost, that is the end of that person. To stay alive therefore is more important than to put lives at risk in the name of going to school,” she stressed.
Professor Obaji said losing one or two or more academic years is not new. She cited the period of Nigeria/Biafra crisis of between 1967 and 1970.
During that period, she noted, many of today’s highly placed individuals, especially from the eastern part, including Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and herself, among numerous others did not go to school for two to three years, yet they fulfilled their God-ordained destinies.
She explained that it was not if there were no schools, classrooms or teachers, as these were in abundance, but because the school environment was not conducive for learning because of the crisis.
“So, schools are not also safe now in the face of this raging COVID-19, except we are deceiving ourselves,” she said.
She added that going to school for lessons or examinations daily under the current dispensation, especially by the students in boarding schools and whose parents are based outside the school towns or live far away from schools in cities like Lagos, would be very difficult to achieve.
She said, “Many schools are also overpopulated making social/physical distancing unrealistic, and we cannot afford the episode that happened, for example, in Ghana where students returning to schools resulted in exponential increase in COVID-19 infection cases and deaths.
“So, there is no basis to rush in reopening schools. After all, even if students sit for WASSCE now, where are they going to use the results? The university lecturers are still on strike and students in 100 level are yet to vacate the class.”
SOURCE___TRIBUNE
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