The students of Tertiary institutions in Nigeria are waiting to hearing the Federal Government announce the resumption date to continue theiracademic activities.
Hope of tertiary institution students returning to school soon was dashed on Tuesday, when the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 confirmed that there was no plan on ground yet for the reopening of tertiary institutions.
National Coordinator of PTF, Dr. Sani Aliyu, who disclosed the information in Ray Power radio interview, said the PTF is, at the moment, concerned with the measures that would flatten the curve and contain the community transmission of dreaded coronavirus in Nigeria.
He said: “Currently, there’s no plan to reopen tertiary institutions. Our plan at the moment is to ensure that we contain the spread of this disease and ensure that we are in the state where normal socioeconomic activities would be restored.
“We know that schools, together with restaurants, bars and other entrainment activities could encourage community transmission of the dreaded coronavirus, hence the reason why we were not in hurry to reopen them.
“But, however, we have taken pragmatic measures to ensure we do not loose a whole year in terms of primary to secondary school transition, hence the President’s approval for schools to reopen so that exiting students could return to school and write their examinations some of which are regional.
“Summarily, there is no plan to reopen tertiary institutions until we get to the top of the numbers, and also see clearly that we are making significant progress in terms of flattening the curve.”
Recall that the PTF, on Monday, announced some modifications to the phase two of the ease of lockdown as earlier approved by the President, Muhammadu Buhari.
Chairman of PTF, Boss Mustapha, told journalists at the daily briefing of the PTF in Abuja, that the President approved that schools should be reopen for certain categories of students, notably, Primary six, JSS 3 and SS3 students.
In addition to that, he said that the President equally approved the lifting of the ban on Inter-state travels, while maintaining the curfew time which starts from 10pm to 4am.
Meanwhile, the President, National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Danielson Akpan, in his submission commended the Federal Government for the decision to reopen the schools.
He said that NANS had supported the Federal Government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVlD-l9 in Nigeria by setting up committee that monitors and sensitize millions students across Nigeria on the reality and negative effects of COVID-19.
