The National Council on Education (NCE) will today hold an emergency meeting to decide a new resumption date for schools across the country.
The Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of State for Education, Simeon Nwakaudu, who told our correspondent in Abuja on the telephone on Thursday, said that a decision would be taken on the resumption date during the meeting.
The council comprises the Minister of Education, the Minister of State for Education and education commissioners of 36 states as well as the Federal Capital Territory.
Except in an emergency, it meets once in a year.
The government had, after the council meeting on August 26, postponed resumption of private and public primary as well as secondary schools to October 13, 2014, as a precautionary step against the spread of the Ebola virus.
But the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, who briefed state house correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided on by President Goodluck Jonathan on Wednesday indicated that schools resumption date might be moved back to September.
The minister said experts’ opinion had indicated that students could safely resume from mid-September.
“The Minister of Education was directed by the council to convene an emergency meeting with all states Commissioners of Education in order to agree on when schools can resume nationwide,” he had said
Most schools were initially scheduled to resume this month.
The Special Assistant (Media) to the Minister of State for Education, Simeon Nwakaudu, told our correspondent over the phone on Thursday that a decision would be taken on schools’ resumption date during the meeting.
“A decision on the resumption date for schools will be taken during the meeting which would hold on Friday,” he stated.
The Federal Government reversed the decision on the October 13 resumption date following the containment of the spread of the virus in the country.
The Health Minister had on Wednesday, refuted insinuations that 60 Ebola contacts were missing in Port Harcourt.
He said of the 296 contacts actually under surveillance in the entire country, 255 of them were in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and the remaining 41 in Lagos State. – Punch.
