Violet Yong
KUCHING (Sept 16): The Ministry of Education (MOE) must carry out extensive engagement with parents to explain the ministry’s actual definite plan and expectation of parents to ensure that schools are safe for children, said Pending assemblywoman Violet Yong.
In a statement yesterday, she noted that while MOE had announced that schools in Malaysia will reopen in phases based on the phase of the National Recovery Plan of a particular state is in, it comes with rather generic steps that schools will take to ensure the children’s safety.
She said a majority of parents are puzzled with MOE’s decision to reopen schools without a definite clear Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and when the number of Covid-19 cases is still so high.
“Though circulars relating to the generic approaches had been issued, a more specific pedagogy and effective empowerment had not been properly addressed.
“This will definitely give rise to lots of ambiguity and confusion during operations as we have seen during last year when schools have to wait till the very last minute to inform parents about school or class closure because they have to wait for District Education Offices, State Education Departments or District Health offices’ directives. All this red tapes obviously do not contribute towards efficiency but only delays on important urgent response especially when the delta variant is raging,” she said.
Yong pointed out that having a set of clear and definite SOP,MOE will be able to explain clearly on how the ministry could ensure all teachers and support staff are screened so that they do not contribute to the spreading of Covid-19 to the students, such as emphasising on the importance of using quality face mask which has sufficient filtering and fitting quality.
“Parents are expected to ensure their children do not contribute to infecting other children by not letting them to attend school if they or their children have Covid-19 symptoms. This will relieve the schools from having to do daily screening and prevent the spread of Covid-19 among school going children.
“Unfortunately this engagement can only be carried out effectively if the ministry had already formulated clear and definitive SOP. Otherwise it will be a waste of time,” she said.
Yong noted that to date, ventilation is still a pressing issue as all classrooms and common rooms, especially toilets which are frequented by every student have yet to be installed with a proper ventilation system.
“We must bear in mind, with the high infectivity of the delta variant, even with only half the class attending classes, a poorly ventilated classrooms will enable the virus load build-up to infect our children. In fact, the ministry can empower the schools to use their per capita grant to install ventilation fans in their respective schools in order to resolve the school ventilation issue.
“At the very least, the ministry must install window ventilation fans to ensure sufficient good air flow in the closed confined areas to avoid increasing virus load in such stagnant-aired confined areas,” she said, adding that schools must be given clear specific instructions to avoid any confusion.
Yong is also of the opinion that there is need to adopt a new practice in the screening approach.
“The schools in the west have adopted the RTK antigen test of at least once a week for all students, teachers and support staff including contractors’ workers. It is important and necessary for the schools to use the same approach in order to detect Covid-19 cases because almost all vaccinated do not show high body temperature, which our previous and current screening approach are targeting.
“Hence, we must not waste precious school resources in doing ineffective work but focus on the critical important tasks at hand and taking and recording body temperature is definitely not one of them,” she said.
However, she opined that the RTK antigen test kit is unaffordable to most Malaysians, saying that based on the survey done, it costs about RM3 to RM5 in Europe but costs around RM30 to RM50 in Malaysia.
“The government must allow any entity to import the approve test kits to encourage fair competition among businesses and bring the price down and make it affordable to every Malaysian as it will become a basic necessity like air and water in our new norm,” she said.
Yong said another pressing issue is parents’ lack confidence in the ministry in keeping the school bubble safe.
“This is because there is a serious lack of support to our B40 students making them unable to afford the better quality three-ply face mask. The ministry must ensure that face masks are made available to these children through whichever programme that is deemed suitable.
“It is pertinent for the government to have a clear and definite face mask programme or risk an epidemic spread of the Covid-19 infection because only mask of appropriate filtration property and cover properly will be effective,” she said.
Yong said that the ministry must also ensure that proper sanitisation is done if there is a change in the group of children using any room in the school.
“Among the rooms of concern are the science laboratories, computer rooms, prayer rooms and room dedicated for specific activities in schools.
“I am confident if the ministry could adopt the suggested approaches, it will help reduce the risk of infection and greatly increase the parents’ confidence in the safety of their children,” she said.