Parents encouraged to check SOP compliance by schools

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Misterine (front, left) and teachers at the state-level Teachers Day celebration yesterday.

KOTA KINABALU: Parents who are wary of sending their children to school when it reopens on July 15 will not be forced to do so.

However, State Education Department Director, Dr Misterine Radin encouraged them to conduct a check on the school attended by their children and its adherance to the Standard Operating Procedure.

“If they are confident, they can send their children to school,” said Misterine to press members during the state level teachers day celebration yesterday.

She added that many parents were sceptical about sending their pre-school children to school when it reopened on July 1.

However, the attendance level has grown encouragingly day by day, she said.

She believed that a similar scenario will also happen in primary and secondary schools when classes resume.
Misterine said that the department is now guiding all schools in Sabah to prepare for the schools’ re-opening.

“We want to ensure strict adherance to the SOP,” she said, adding that the department wants to avoid the onset of a school Covid-19 cluster.

She also said that the department has prepared three models for schools to adopt.

The first model is for schools that can accommodate all their students in a single session; the second model is for schools that have to carry out two sessions (morning and afternoon); and the third model applies when students can only go to school on alternate days or weeks.

She said that only 10 schools in Sabah would be adopting the third model.

“These are normally popular schools with a capacity of 50 students per classroom,” she said.

She reminded also that the schools reopening will be subject to trial and error.

There are about 400,000 students in Sabah and 43,000 educators.