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No permission yet for students in grades 6 to 9 to return to school
Classes for grades 6 to 9 will not begin immediately, the Education Ministry said.
The COVID Management Task Force has not given the go-ahead to have the rest of the grades to open up, the Ministry’s Additional Secretary L. W. D. Dharmasena said.
This follows COVID-19 positive cases being reported in classrooms that have been re-opened.
“We are monitoring the situation,” Mr. Dharmasena said.
Classes were resumed in stages, beginning with sparsely populated primary schools with less than 200 children. These schools were re-opened on October 25, after a lapse of seven months due to the pandemic.
On November 1, all 10,155 schools in the country resumed classes for primary students from grade 1 to grade 5. On November 8, O/L and A/L students from grade 10 to grade 13, were allowed to return to their schools.
However it is learnt that only around 60% of the student population are attending school.
“Parents are still scared and are not sending their children to school,” Mr Dharmasena said.
Meanwhile with teachers and principals returning to work after a long drawn strike and protest which ended yesterday, the Education Ministry has directed the National Institute of Education (NIE) to prepare a concise syllabus for the benefit of students who have missed out on classroom work.
Only a minimum amount of content deemed important will be completed by the end of the academic year.
Already the syllabuses for primary grades and grade 10 have been prepared.
“Soon syllabuses for all grades will be ready and will be sent out to schools and parents informed,” Mr. Dharmasena said.
Meanwhile, Gurugedera classes conducted on national television channels by the NIE will continue, and teachers will continue online classes for the other grades, but these classes will not be compulsory, he said.
Schools were re-opened on October 25, after a lapse of seven months due to the pandemic