Students at Chi Lang Primary School in HCM City's Go Vap district. Photo: VNA HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City’sDepartment of Education and Training has ordered the heads of local educationalinstitutions to strengthen preventive measures against COVID-19for the opening ceremony for the upcoming new academic year.
In a document sent late last week, thedepartment called on all pre-school, general education and continuingeducation institutions to continue with a set of criteriato evaluate safety.
They will only be allowed to open ifthey ensure safety and pandemic prevention and control.
Each needs to set up acommittee for COVID-19 prevention and control and develop anepidemic prevention and control plan.
Before the new academic year begins onSeptember 5, they must clean and disinfect classrooms, devices, teachingtools, and toys and ensure there is proper ventilation in classrooms.
They must ensure there are places forwashing hands, clean water, hand sanitisers, soaps, paper towels, and trashcans for teachers, other staff and students.
Besides, there must be electronicthermometers to measure the temperature of every entrant, face masks andessential medical supplies and equipment.
They need to prepare documents on epidemicprevention and control so that teachers can provide their students withaccurate knowledge and instruct them to strictly comply withpreventive regulations.
Everyone should wear face masks outsideclassrooms and regularly clean their hands with antibacterialsoap or sanitiser.
Wearing masks inside classrooms isrecommended but not mandatory.
All staff, teachers and students areencouraged to use personal water bottles and hand sanitisers.
Medical workers in schools needto co-ordinate with teachers to monitor students to promptly detectfever, cough or breathing difficulty. If they do find anyonewith any of these symptoms they must immediately contact local medicalcentres for disease control and prevention.
Schools where students are provided allmeals must strictly monitor their food sources and ensure the school kitchenand catering services follow all food safety and hygiene regulations.
In boarding schools, principals will be fullyresponsible for epidemic prevention and need to arrange appropriateaccommodation, minimise unnecessary activities and reduce theconcentration of students in small spaces.
Students' personal utensils should be keptseparate and washed with soap after every use.
Vehicles that are used to transportstudents must be disinfected before and pick-up and after drop-offand equipped with hand sanitisers.
Schools need to work closely with students'families to monitor their health and ensure any suspectedinfection is promptly discovered.
Staff and studentswith fever, cough or breathing difficulty should not attend schooland instead immediately report to their school and the nearest medicalfacility for examination.
Earlier on August 14, the Ministry of Education and Training announced a draft circular providing three e-learning methods for the new academic year this August due to COVID-19 pandemic concerns.
Under the new circular, three online studying forms will be implemented.
In the first form, online learning will be used as a supportive means to traditional face-to-face learning.
Teachers will provide documents, study materials, assign tasks, guide and supervise students to self-study in preparation for learning in class.
In the second form, online studying will partially replace traditional studying.
Students will conduct most studying activities at home and only go to school to practise special skills such as teamwork and debate skills.
In the third form, e-learning will completely replace traditional learning. All studying activities will be carried out entirely online. This option will only be applied when students are unable to attend class, such as during the school closures across the country witnessed since February throughout April this year in a bid to curb coronavirus spread./.
