Gov’t Lied About Students Protection From COVID-19-Teachers & Parents Charge

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has exposed the Akufo Addo administration to have “lied” in assurances given parents and schools administrations in allowing them to reopen despite the raging deadly COVID-19.

The government has refused to supply Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and health assistants to schools as promised, leading to over 112 of the 300,000 students allowed back in schools to be infected with COVID-19.

Critics are worried that with this dangerous lack of protection among the students, Ghanaians schools are set to become a COVID-19 slaughterhouse.

“Are we saying that one mask per student that is the end to this problem? Then it means as a country we lied, as a country we have not been honest because people in positions have mentioned that all the PPEs have been supplied,” GNAT President Phillipa Larsen said Tuesday in an interview on 3FM’s Sunrise show.

“They said without the PPEs the doors of the schools were not going to be opened. Unfortunately, the school reopened without PPEs but the schools managed. They have done a few things especially with the Veronica buckets, the soaps and the rest. The parents also did well by providing some nose masks. That is what the schools managed until the government supplied the PPEs to the schools,” the head of the teacher union revealed.

Similarly, Alexander Danso, the National President of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) has noted that the decision to reopen schools was meant for final year students to take their exit exam with maximum safety protocols observed but that has changed at the moment.

Similarly, Alexander Danso, the National President of the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) has reiterated criticisms that the Akufo Addo administration had lied to persuading schools to be reopened amidst the raging coronavirus.

“Do we have to wait for the cases to rise first before we let the kids come home? A stitch in time saves nine…Three (3) weeks down the lane, some of the schools have not received their PPEs. And those who got them received a few and not all,” he said in a radio interview monitored by Whatsup News.

The Akufo Addo administration has been strongly criticised for endangering the health and lives of Ghanaians students by its controversial decision to reopen schools amidst fears that students could be exposed to the coronavirus.

The reopening has been referred to as politically motivated as the Electoral Commission set up a questionable “mobile” registration centres in these schools to register a curiously named “Akufo Addo Graduates”. These are the first batch of student who benefited from the Free Senior High School policy of the government.

The governing party believes its electoral fortunes would be boosted by the injection of votes from these nascent voters.