GhanaWeb Polls: Over 60% of respondents think govt was wrong to reopen schools

A majority of respondents surveyed in a poll conducted online by GhanaWeb.com say the government was wrong to allow for students to return back to school in the wake of the rising Coronavirus cases.

Per the results from the poll conducted on July 9, 2020, 65.58% representing 3,898 votes said the government's decision to reopen was a wrong one and are calling for a reversal.

Some 31.14% on the hand representing 1,851 votes backed the decision to reopen schools as the right one.

A further 195 votes representing 3.28% from the poll showed they were indifferent about the motion.

President Akufo-Addo in an address to the nation eased the coronavirus induced restrictions to allow for final year students in the tertiary, senior high, and basic schools to return back to take their final year exams.

The decision, to allow for schools to be reopened has since sparked a nationwide conversation and some protests from parents following confirmed reports of some students testing positive for COVID-19 a few weeks after their return.

While other educational unions have also called for the closure of reopened Senior High Schools, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) has also confirmed over 55 students of Accra Girls’ Senior High had tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the Education Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh and some government officials have defended the decision to reopen schools despite the increasing number of positive cases for COVID-19 in some schools.

See results from the polls here:

NB: Results from this poll are only representative of participants and therefore cannot be generalized.

Background

GhanaWeb launched its polls in May with the first question being: Should the EC go ahead with the new register?

This poll question gained 141,132 responses in 48 hours and over 2,000 people commented under the poll expressing divergent views about the Electoral Commission and the new voters’ register.

The GhanaWeb Poll is an open-access poll that allows participants to self-select into participation. The results of the poll cannot be generalized, but are only representative of the participants of the poll.

The poll seeks to enable GhanaWeb readers to predict the opinions of Ghanaians on issues and decisions that affect the country.