By Lian Cheng
KUCHING, April 15: Divisional Disaster Management Committees (DDMC) across Sarawak have been empowered to decide on schools reopening.
Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas announced this when asked by media to comment on school resuming in hotspot areas such as Sibu and Bintulu which are currently seeing a surge in Covid-19 cases.
“We have given power to DDMC in Sibu and Bintulu to discuss with Divisional Education officers and Divisional Health Offices.
“We hope they will make risk assessments. If they think the opening of school will affect health, then they will make recommendations to the relevant departments. We have taken that approach all these while,” said Uggah who is also Deputy Chief Minister at a press conference to give updates on the Covid-19 in Sarawak here today.
School reopening has been a topic of hot debate since the beginning of this year as Covid-19 cases continued to surface in Sarawak.
There are those who believe that schools should be closed to contain the spread of Covid-19 while there are others who assert that schools should reopen as students’ education has long been disrupted by different measures put in place by SDMC to control the pandemic.
Meanwhile, despite the recent surge in cases in Sarawak, the State is following the decision of the Education Ministry where in general, all schools remain open.
Some schools however may close for sanitation when there are Covid-19 cases detected amongst the school population.
Some schools choose to close only the classes where Covid-19 positive students have been attending. — DayakDaily
