Aim for a safe return to school

THE new 2022/2023 academic school year starts tomorrow. It will be a challenging time, especially for students who are entering school for the first time, for worried parents, and for teachers who have to prepare the school premises and stand ready to enforce the standard operating procedure.

Parents can help by impressing on their children – especially the younger ones – how important it is to keep their mask on (properly covering the nose and mouth), not to get too close to friends old and new, and not to share food.

This year, the Education Ministry has relaxed some rules: For instance, sports and co-curricular activities outside the classroom will be allowed for the first time since the ban was imposed on June 10, 2020.

After about two years of online classes or being confined in classrooms, students and teachers can now return to normal conditions with face-to-face classes and outside activities, albeit with masks and distancing in place.

On Feb 3, Malaysia kicked off its Covid-19 vaccination drive for children aged five to 11.

With the vaccination of teachers and parents, we hope that this will make schools a safer environment for children as they will be spending at least half a day at these premises.

But as some parents are still worried about sending their children to school, the ministry has allowed flexibility for parents who choose not to send their children to school; however, they must inform school officials of their decision.

Hopefully, the testing that will be done might reassure some parents: The Education Ministry will continue to implement the National Covid-19 Testing Strategy of testing 10% of students – children will be randomly selected to do a Covid-19 self-test at home with kits provided by the ministry.

There are other ways in which the ministry is trying to ease the return to physical classes: Bearing in mind that students might have outgrown their school uniforms in the past year or two, the ministry says students can wear their own clothes, as long as they are suitable.

With parents and teachers emphasising the importance of adhering to the SOP, let’s hope we won’t see any school clusters emerging.

We wish all students a safe return to school.