COVID-19: Withdrawing children from school not necessary now – CRI

The Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah, has joined calls by some teacher unions who have suggested that it is not practical to shut down schools again due to the spike in COVID-19 cases in the country.

Mr. Appiah said more data was needed to establish the extent of risk.

“We think we have not gotten to that level of risk to say that we should withdraw children from schools based on the indicators,” he said in an interview.

“What we need to worry about is whether children are the potential transmitters of COVID among the vulnerable groups. We need to satisfy some of these things to be able to come to a reasonable conclusion.”

Schools in the country resumed teaching and learning from January 18 after several months of being closed in 2020 to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Multiple schools have reported COVID-19 infection with the most cases coming from the Akosombo Internation School with over 50 cases.

Two teacher unions; the National Association of Graduate Teachers and the Ghana National Association of Teachers, have also described calls for the closure of schools as hasty.

The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, Thomas Musah, intimated that it was too soon for such a call.

Schools in the country resumed teaching and learning from January 18 after several months of being closed in 2020 to help curb the spread of COVID-19.

Mr. Musah said the infections recorded so far were isolated cases.

He cited circumstances at the Akosombo International School where scores have been infected.

“For one of the schools where we have recorded such high cases, the best way to go is to isolate that particular school,” Mr. Musah argued.