KOTA KINABALU: The Education Ministry should heed the growing voices of the public to postpone reopening schools in September, says Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin (pic).

       He said the Covid 19 situation continues to worsen in the country and reopening schools at this juncture would complicate the situation.

       “The Education Ministry must learn from experience and the complications faced at the beginning of this year and not repeat the same mistakes.

       "As the Covid-19 pandemic situation continues to worsen, the ministry must not act hastily in reopening schools,” Chan said in a statement on Friday (Aug 13).

       Chan, who is Sabah DAP secretary, said when primary schools opened in stages from March 1, at least five primary and secondary schools in Kota Kinabalu had confirmed Covid-19 cases within two months.

       There were 42 new cases involving schools by April 22.

       “Hundreds of students ended up queuing up for Covid-19 tests. I believe this incident is still fresh in everyone’s memory,” said Chan, adding that high cases in Sabah could further be compounded by the reopening of schools.

       He also noted that there was no doubt more teachers getting vaccinated but as of Aug 1, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba said there were still about 85,000 teachers who had not received the jabs.

       “The minister said all teachers are expected to receive at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine before school starts in September. However, that does not seem to guarantee anything at all.

       "Is one dose of a vaccine enough to ensure the students will be safe from Covid-19? What about other players in the education sector? School cafeteria operators, bus drivers and security guards - have they all been vaccinated?” Chan asked.

       Chan said since there were only 10 weeks left for schools, the Education Ministry might as well study how to strengthen the implementation of home-based learning and teaching.

       He said there were about 500,000 teachers in the country and the number of primary and secondary school students is about 5.4 million.

       Together with teachers, the total is about 5.9 million, accounting for about 18% of the country's total population, he added.

       Following the spike of Covid-19 cases in Sabah that crossed 2,000 cases on Thursday (Aug 12), many groups have been urging the government to reconsider the reopening of schools in September.