By Philip Yatai

The Kaduna State Government has approved Feb. 22 as the second phase resumption date for the remaining classes in public and private primary and secondary schools across the state.

The Commissioner for Education, Dr Shehu Muhammad made the announcement in a statement made available to journalists in Kaduna on Saturday.

The state government had reopened schools on Feb 1, but only Junior Secondary School 1 (JSS 1), JSS 3, Senior Secondary School 3 (SS 3), and primary four, five and six in private schools were opened.

All public primary and nursery schools were asked to remain closed.

The schools were directed to run academic activities on shift bases to ensure compliance to COVID-19 guidelines with the first shift running from 08:00am to 12:00 noon while the second shift will be from 01:00 p.m. to 05:00 p.m.

Muhammad said that after a thorough review of adherence to COVID-19 protocols in school, the government has directed that all the remailing classes in public and private schools to reopen for full academic activities.

He added that the schools would continue to run shifts to enable them to sustain the COVID-19 guidelines and abide by the simple preventive measures put in place.

He identified the remaining classes as SS 2, SS 1 and JSS 2 in public and private secondary schools; primary four, five and six in public primary schools.

Others, according to him, are primary three, two, one and nursery classes in private schools, as well as Islamiyah schools.

“In view of this, the Kaduna State Ministry of Education is directing all Principals and Head Teachers to make arrangements to receive Boarding and Day students of the approved classes on Feb. 22.

“The State Covid-19 Task Force will continue monitoring all schools to ensure that safe learning environments against the pandemic are strictly adhered to and maintained.

“This is in addition to the continuous enforcement of all COVID-19 guidelines put in place by the State government.

“As such, all administrators of public and private schools must continue to comply with all COVID-19 Protocols as any violation may lead to the closure of the affected school without any notice,” he said.

The commissioner urged the school administrators of public and private schools to continue implementing the blended e-learning and physical learning system.

He assured the ministry’s commitment to continue the e-learning programme using Google classroom, radio and television stations and other online platforms. He thanked all stakeholders for supporting the state in improving the state’s education delivery system.