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Education Ministry instructs to shorten school hours

Lamya Abdulla
14 January 2022, MVT 21:07
(FILE) Students of Iskandhar School on report giving day, on November 21, 2019: as Maldives is seeing a surge in Covid cases due to Omicron variant, schools are placing precautionary measures to control the spread -- Photo: Mihaaru
Lamya Abdulla
14 January 2022, MVT 21:07

Ministry of Education has instructed schools in the Greater Male' Region to reduce the number of days they teach due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.

As Covid cases have started to increase at an alarming rate, Health Protection Agency (HPA) has instructed them to take precautionary measures, the ministry said in a statement. As schools are set to start classes for the second term of the academic year on Sunday, the ministry have informed the schools as to the areas they have to pay attention to.

The ministry has directed schools shorten the school sessions and to plan their timetables in a way that would ensure students in grades 1-8 (key stage 1, 2, and 3) attend in-person classes at least twice a week.

As per these changes, schools in Male', Hulhumale' and Villimale' have now shortened the hours required for students to attend school for the coming week. In some schools, students of key stage one and two are required to attend school for about three hours and the remaining grades for four hours.

Additionally, they have requested to maintain social distance in all extra-curricular activities conducted at the school, and to pay attention to monitoring student’s temperature and to sanitize often as well.

Schools were gearing up to reopen after nearly a month long break for the first semester. However, as Covid cases in Maldives are on the rise due to the highly contagious Omicron variant, precautionary measures are now being strengthened. If a student or teacher has travelled from an island under monitoring due to community spread present there, the ministry has instructed them not to attend school unless they undertake a PCR test that provides a negative result.

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