The Federal Ministry of Education has presented a detailed proposal on its plan to reopen schools across the country to the National Assembly. The Minister of State for Education,  Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, stated this on Tuesday when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Basic and Secondary Education.

Nwajiuba however refused to give details of the proposal, saying some people would misconstrue it as the ministry’s guidelines for schools reopening.

According to him, children are asymptomatic carriers. Nobody can prove whether they can infect one another even the health experts. He stated that whatever we know about the virus is based on what we have read.

He mentioned that the guidelines suggest how the country can still move the education sector forward =even in the face of this pandemic

“We don’t want to make it (proposal) known at this period so that some people will not take our proposal for the guidelines for schools reopening.

He kicked against the idea of some states reopening schools and others making plans to reopen schools in their states as it is against the guidelines of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The vice-chairman of the panel, Senator Akon Eyakenyi, who presided over the meeting,  expressed the fears that the academic calendar could be distorted in public schools where no visible arrangement was being made to teach the children at home unlike their counterparts in private schools.