Your children are safe – GES Boss assures parents

The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Professor Opoku-Amankwa has assured parents of Senior High School students of the safety of their children.

Apprehension is growing among parents after it emerged that some students of the Accra Girls SHS and Wesley SHS have tested positive for the coronavirus.

In the case of Accra Girls, some parents who were alarmed with the news, besieged the school premises on Tuesday to take their wards home.

But in an exclusive interview with www.ghanaweb.com, Professor Opoku-Amankwa emphasized that the schools remain the safest place for the students.

According to him, measures have been put in place to deal with any suspected case of coronavirus and he is confident about the ability of schools to handle cases.

Professor Opoku-Amankwa reiterated the need for parents to trust the government and asked the heads of schools to ensure that the safety protocols are strictly adhered to.

“We are looking at 300,000 children who are in schools now. If you report thirty or ten of them, is it an issue for panic? We are told that the COVID, if you get it, within four to eleven days, you will see the signs so if you treat those ones and do not allow people to come in as we did with the borders. Everything that we are treating is indoors and all things being equal by the time they’ll be writing the exams, the issue would have been curtailed,” he said.

“Between us and the health people, we are hoping that there will not be a lot of cases. We expected that there will be cases but there is no cause for alarm. With the measure put in place, we believe the children are safe.”

Meanwhile, the Minority in Parliament has called on government to close down schools following the confirmation cases in some schools.

In a statement signed by MP for Builsa North, Clement Apaak, the NDC MPs are urging government ‘prioritize’ the lives of students and shut down the schools. "We must prioritize the lives of the students, after all, how can sick or dead students write exams. The examinations can be postponed but the safety of our future leaders cannot be postponed."

"It is time the government reconsiders keeping our schools opened while we enter our rooms every day with a prayer that no one gets infected. We also have a choice of reducing such high risk, by closing these schools for a much-extended period until we are sure of having contained the virus which would reflect on our cases per day. In the last few days, Ghana recorded over 750 and over 690 cases per day. This does not provide any parent the comfort to assume the safety of their children," the statement said.