GES Must Consider An Isolation Strategy For BECE Candidates And Their Teachers As Well-Mr Mathias Tulasi

Tulasi Mathias

Mr Mathias Tulasi, the Chief Executive Officer of Literacy Ambassadors Ghana (LAG), a non-governmental literacy organisation has referred to GES' five (5) ways of protecting BECE, WASSCE Candidates and their teachers against the COVID-19 as one-sided.

Mr Mathias Tulasi made this remark reacting to the latest statement issued by GES.

Below is his full statement

The President of the Republic His Excellency Nana Addo addressed Ghanaians on Sunday, 15th March 2020 on some of the measures to be taken against the Novel COVID 19.

He indicated schools closed from Monday, 16th March 2020 till further notice.

However, BECE and WASSCE candidates will be allowed to attend school to prepare for their final examination but with prescribed social distancing protocols.

We all know that BECE, WASSCE candidates, and their teachers are not corona virus-free people but for the sake of the candidates' teachers across the heeded the call by the President and started teaching these candidates across the country in anticipation of the next update by the President concerning the candidates and themselves.

Surprisingly, at a meeting held by the Director-General and his two Deputies with other notable stakeholders such as Association of Principals of Technical Institutions( APTI), Conference of Heads of Basic Schools (COBHS) , the Director in charge of Basic and Secondary Education as well as the Financial Controller of the Ghana Education Service (GES) on Wednesday, 18th March 2020 to discuss the Presidents directive on the COVID-19 Pandemic ended with more focus on the WASSCE Candidates and their teachers than the BECE Candidates and their teachers.

This l think is problematic and may put the lives of the BECE candidates and their teachers in jeopardy and should be given a second thought by the Ghana Education Service(GES).

The five (5) ways of protecting BECE, WASSCE Candidates and their teachers as issued by Ghana Education Service (GES) as follows;

That all-day students in the final year should be made to join their Colleagues in the Boarding house to augment the isolation strategy.

That schools in (especially the Greater Accra Region) which are day and schools with a high number of students which may not be able to accommodate all students on board should declare their numbers so that they could be sent to other schools.

That there will be the possibility of all schools that have hostels to be activated to accommodate some of the students.

That there will be Veronica buckets and detergents provided in the schools by the collaboration of the Ghana Education Service with the Ghana Health Services to ensure every student and teacher wash their hands before and after lessons.

That there will be infra-red thermometers in the schools to check the temperature of students before and after school.

An isolation strategy put in place for WASSCE Candidates and their teachers and nothing was said concerning BECE candidates and their teachers.

The question is, what happens to the BECE Candidates and their teachers?

Don't they also commute from their homes every day to school?

Ghana Education Service (GES) must consider an isolation strategy for BECE candidates and their teachers as well because the number of confirmed cases keep on increasing with some who are resident in Ghana without any travel history.

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