As tertiary institutions in Lagos State reopen Monday, September 14, the state government says final-year students will go back to the classrooms before students on other levels. Tokunbo Wahab, special adviser on education to the state governor, made this known on Thursday while featuring on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme.
Schools in the country had been shut in March as part of measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease. But the Federal Government announced the resumption of graduating pupils last month to write this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination from August 17, 2020, through September 12, 2020.
The state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had subsequently announced the reopening of schools in the state starting with tertiary institutions on September 14, 2020. “I am pleased to announce that our tertiary institutions will be allowed to reopen from September 14, 2020, all our tertiary institutions,” the governor had said, adding that secondary and primary schools would reopen a week after.
Speaking on Thursday, Wahab explained that the government had put in place necessary facilities and processes to ensure a safe reopening of classrooms in the state. He also emphasised that the students in the state would resume in phases.
“Basically, we are at a point where scientifically we’ve been proven to have flattened the curve. And it invariably means that we are not as exposed as we used to be some five, four, three months back. So, consequently, we have to find a way to bring our lives back to normal. And in doing that, education is very critical to whatever we are going to do,” the governor’s aide said.
“In the past few weeks, we’ve been putting in place measures and facilities that will enable our children come back to school. Even at that, what we seek to do from next week is to start a phased reopening of our tertiary institutions. On the 14th we have announced that our tertiary institutions are going to open to our students for the first time after six months,” he said.
Wahab said the students have been having their lectures online all along and “they are going to come on campus to have their revision one-on-one and then they can now have their exams and their projects”.
“For our tertiary (institutions) from on the 14th, we are going to start with the final-year students across our tertiary institutions. With those final-year students, we are sure that they are older, they are more mature, and they are going to meet up with the protocol as put in place by the institutions based on the regulations of the NCDC (Nigeria Centre for Disease Control).
“After we have phased them out, maybe after their exams, then, those in the penultimate year will come on campus. So, we are not going to put all our students on campus at the same time. For our secondary, from on the 21st, they are also going to have a phased resumption,” he said.