Days after announcing their readiness to re-open schools, the Ministry of Education in a joint effort with the Health Ministry have submitted a final readiness report to the President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni for a way forward.
This brings about the ‘big decision’ the president is going to make as far as re-opening of schools is concerned, as he earlier assured in his address to the nation at the beginning of this month of August.
State Minister for Higher Education, Dr Chrysostom Muyingo said as a Ministry, they are now waiting for President Museveni’s decision.
“We are waiting for the President. He is the one who announced the closure. We have provided him all the information. He is waiting to get verification from the ministry of health. As long as he gets all the information, he will tell us the next step to take,” Minister Muyingo said.
The ever increasing COVID-19 deaths, most especially in Kampala, raises the extent of how ‘big’ the decision to re-open or not, will be. The deaths as at 1 PM today stand at 12.
It’s close to 5 months now since education institutions were closed in March to curb the spread of the Coronavirus amongst the learners and academia.
During his recent interview with the national broadcaster, UBC, Museveni disclosed that the government is looking at the possibility of allowing final year students pursuing medical studies to sit for their last exams in a bid to get interns that can help in the fight against COVID-19.
According to Museveni, the medical students are not so many and arrangements can be made to see that they do their exams while observing social distancing.
“The schools, we are looking at the medical finalists because we need them. When they finish their graduate studies they become interns, they are the ones who run hospitals. So they can’t miss their exam, if they miss their exam, we also miss interns.” Museveni said.
As it all stands, the status of re-opening schools or not, now rests entirely in the president’s hands.
