KUCHING: The Association of the Boards of Management of Aided Primary Schools in Kuching, Samarahan and Serian hopes that school canteens will be allowed to reopen soon.
Its president Datuk Jonathan Chai said the boards of management of most Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (SJK) Chung Hua have been very sympathetic towards the canteen operators by giving hefty discount or even total waiver of rentals when the schools were closed due to curb COVID-19 and the Movement Control Order (MCO) in the last two years.
“So, I also hope that students would be allowed to use the canteen facilities by having their meals there, possibly with some guidelines on social distancing,” he told New Sarawak Tribune.
“As our country is moving towards the endemic stage, we have now been advised to live with the virus. I think similar expectations would be applicable to the schools too,” he said.
He said the boards of management had also lost substantial income which was supposed to be generated from the collection of rentals from the canteen operators.
Chai was commenting on the recent announcement that the Education Ministry was expected to complete the schooling guidelines 4.0 by the end of April, to allow more freedom of movement.
He said it was expected that certain basic measures would stay, for example to put on the face mask at all times in school and also to maintain safe social distance in classes.
He said certain extracurricular activities, including sports which do not require body contact should be allowed. However, other sporting activities like soccer and basketball should be banned for the time being.
“I am in favour of opening up the activities to allow the learning process or schooling environment to go back to normalcy but it must be done gradually with due consideration of the progress of keeping the outbreak of the virus very much under control,” he said.
“Having said that, I am pleased to learn that as at March 30, Sarawak has achieved 72 percent of the vaccination rate for the children aged between five to 11 and that’s the highest rate in the country,” he added.
Chai said it was crucial to ensure most students are vaccinated sooner in order to make the school a safer place of learning in the midst of the rampage of Omicron, the highly infectious variant.
“Personally, I still believe that all parties including the parents and family members, tuition centres and school bus operators must play their parts by strictly adhering to the SOP prescribed by the relevant authorities and thereby preventing the students from becoming a potential source of infection for Covid-19 in schools,” he said,
On Sunday (April 17), Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said the new guidelines said the new guidelines will be in line with the current COVID-19 situation and will allow more freedom of movement.
The same guidelines will also apply to boarding schools, which will include boarding school students who are close contacts of Covid-19 patients.
“Under the new guidelines, they will not be required to undergo quarantine anymore,” he added.
