The Ebonyi Government has announced that it would re-open schools in the state on October 5, 2020, with the exception of kindergarten and crèches.
The Commissioner for Education, Dr. Onyebuchi Chima, announced the plan on Thursday while briefing newsmen at the end of the state’s Executive Council meeting in Abakaliki.
Chima described the executive council meeting as a “good one’’ for the state ministry of education as it approved the memo from the ministry for the re-opening of schools.
“The resumption will be for the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education as academic activities will be ‘staggered’ according to the ministry’s recommendation.
“This means that there will be two sections for schools: morning and afternoon sessions with the morning sessions starting from 8 .a.m to 12 p.m., while the afternoon will start from 12.15 p.m. to 4.p.m.
“The junior primary section: 1–3 and junior secondary 1-3 classes will have their sessions in the morning, while the senior primary: 4–6 and senior secondary 1-3 classes will run in the afternoon session.
“This implies that each session will run for four hours and we will dedicate the first two to three weeks of academic resumption to intensive studies to conclude the remaining programmes of the 2019/ 2020 academic sessions,” he said.
“We will subsequently conduct a mini-promotional examination to enable the schools to move fully into the 2020/21 academic session.
“The ministry applied and the executive council approved that we will not resume kindergarten and crèches in the state for pupils from 0-5 years.
“This is because we know that the COVID-19 pandemic is subsiding but we should not give it the opportunity to spring its ugly head again.”
Mr Cletus Ofoke, the state’s Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, disclosed that the governor assigned portfolio to former Local Government Area (LGA) Chairmen as his Special Assistants (SAs).
“Chef Sunday Ogodo is the SA on school monitoring and will operate from Ezza South LGA and Chief Ogonnaya Chukwu-Ude is SA on school monitoring as well as operate from Ivo LGA.
“Chief Ogbonnaya Oko-Enyim is also SA on school monitoring and will operate from Afikpo North LGA.
“They all will ensure that teachers and civil servants in their councils and development centres attend to their duties such as monitoring of schools’ re-opening among others,” he said.
Mr Uchenna Orji, Commissioner for Information and Orientation, said that students in tertiary institutions were adults as their respective institutions would determine the schedule for their academic activities.
