Seventy-two hours to the September 22 resumption date, many states, including Oyo and Ogun have yet to receive non-contact infrared thermometers from the Federal Government.
The Ogun State Commissioner for education, Mr. Segun Odubela, who confirmed this to one of our correspondents, said he was not sure if schools in the state would adhere to the directive.
The non-contact thermometer is an instrument for detecting high fever, a key symptom of the Ebola Virus Disease.
Odubela, however, said the state was still hopeful of taking delivery of the thermometers on Friday (today).
“I am still talking with the officials of the Federal Ministry of Education on the infrared thermometers. As of now, we have yet to receive them. Hopefully by tomorrow (Friday), I will still call them,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, checks by our correspondents have shown that schools in some states will not resume on Monday.
While states, such as Lagos, Ondo and Edo, have given the green light, Nassarawa, Niger, Zamfara, Ekiti and a few others states have shifted the resumption date further ahead for different reasons.
In Nassarawa State, for instance, the state chairman, Nigerian Union of Teachers, Mr. Francis Jatua, said no school had yet to receive any equipment for testing the virus.
Jatua said, “As I speak to you no single school in the state has received materials for testing and prevention of Ebola virus ahead of the September 22resumption date.
“I have just finished a meeting with my branch chairmen and representatives of NUT in the local government areas and I asked them whether they have received materials for prevention of Ebola virus and no one proved to me that he has received any material.”
In Oyo state, the testing materials were being expected as of Thursday while a stakeholders’ meeting has been fixed for Friday (today).
But the situation is different in Edo State where the state chapter of the NUT said it would comply with the directive of the Federal Government. The union, nonetheless, said its members would not hesitate to shun work if the materials were not provided within a week of resumption.
Said the state chairman, Mr. Mike Uhumwangho, “The state government is to provide sanitisers and the equipment for checking body temperature for the schools within a week. We are giving them between Monday and Friday (September 26) to put everything in place. If it is not put in place within seven days, we will make sure that nobody goes back to school.’’
In Zamfara and Niger states, resumption has been deferred to October 10 after the Id-el Kabir holiday.
Meanwhile, psychologists and medical doctors have advised parents and school administrators to play their part in ensuring the safety of pupils and members of staff.
They also urged the government to reassure apprehensive parents and teachers of its commitment to providing necessary equipment to check the further spread of Ebola Virus Disease.
The appeal is coming as the Nigerian Union of Teachers directed its members not to report to work unless the basic EVD testing facilities were available in their schools.
The NUT last week had kicked against the September 22 resumption date, saying there were no enough medical provisions to check the EVD scourge in the nation’s schools.
But a physician with the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba, Lagos, Dr. Dan Onwujekwe, while appraising the situation, urged parents to begin to expose their children to the rudiments of personal hygiene.
According to him, simple personal hygiene such as hand washing can prevent contacting the EVD as well as other infections, such as glaucoma and conjunctives.
“We should not allow the Ebola virus to make us prisoners. Parents have the responsibility of teaching their children about hand washing not just before eating and after using the toilet but to wash their faces.
“Sanitisers are good but soap and water is even better. Each school should make them available in conspicuous places. There are opportunities in the Ebola outbreak that we should exploit to teach pupils and members of staff basic hygiene rules,” he submitted.
Even as Onwujekwe challenged parents and guardians to live up to their domestic responsibilities, a psychology teacher at the University of Lagos, Dr. Olubamikole Fagboungbe, said the Federal Government had a bigger role to play in bringing restoring the people’s confidence.
Indeed, for Fagboungbe, government at all levels should do everything to assure parents that school administrators had received adequate training to screen and manage any suspected Ebola case.
Decrying what he called the rush for schools to resume, Fagboungbe said parents would need to physically see the precautionary measures put in place by the authorities.
“I don’t know why the government is in a hurry to reopen schools. During (the late Gen. Sani) Abacha’s regime, schools were shut for many semesters. The current Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, was then the Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
“Parents will still be tense; in fact, parents will bear the brunt more than the pupils. They will naturally be agitated. They need a lot of assurance from the government. Parents, especially mothers, have emotional attachment to their children. Unless the government can assure them, not only by mere talk but by letting them see these measures physically, they will remain agitated,’’ he said.
But toeing Onwujekwe’s line of argument, a psychiatrist with the Ladoke Akintola University Teaching Hospital, Ogbomosho, Oyo State, Dr. Oyewole Adeoye, noted that many parents would storm schools on September 22 to see how the authorities would respond to the outbreak.
Adeoye said, “Schools should call a stakeholders’ meeting where parents and experts would sit and the expectations from each party would be tabled. There should be protocols on what an average parent is to provide and what the school is to give in the management of any disease. The Ebola Virus Disease has been around for a while but this is the first time we are waking up from our intellectual laziness.
“If banks and other institutions are still open and temperature checks are done at the point of entry, I don’t see why schools should be closed. Many people are seeking protection for themselves no matter the level of education. So, we need to sit together and determine our stakes in this situation. Personally, I will visit my children’s school on Monday and see what knowledge of the disease and the facility to pick any index case is available.’’
In a related development, Odubela on Thursday said the state had trained 15,000 teachers in preparation for resumption of classes on Monday.
The training, supervised by medical officials of the state ministry of health, he said, took place in seven centres in the state.
He said, “We started the training on Tuesday and it ended Thursday (today). We had it in seven centres across the state.”
Odubela, who said the participants were enthusiastic about the training, noted that the exercise bordered on how to handle any eventuality when the pupils resume.
He explained that personnel from both private and public schools benefitted from the training programme.
He said, “The response was overwhelming, we even got more response than we had expected.”
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