A Lecturer with the University for Development Studies, Dr. Michael Adongo has indicated that it would have been a refreshing news to return to the lecture halls as he has missed his students.
However , measures put in place to stop the spread of the Coronavirus were not encouraging. He made this point on his Facebook page in response to the President’s directive for schools and churches to be reopened with strict adherence to safety protocols.
Blow is the full statement he made:
NOT SO FAST MR. PRESIDENT
I am itching to go back to work. I miss my students. I miss travelling abroad for those engaging moments. I miss church and our congregation and I miss my clients. I miss being on the touchline and shouting instructions to my boys on the field of play. I am excited at the prospects of some semblance of normalcy. At long last school is reopening and I should be happy right? But No.
I am worried. Students in secondary schools and universities live in dormitories and rooms in Halls of residence.
By the nature of our halls and dormitories, students live in pairs at best and in some instances more than 10 in a room. This makes it impossible to implement and enforce social distancing protocols.
It may be possible to provide single occupancy or at least pair students in some Universities and secondary schools. In the majority of schools this is simply not possible even if we were to introduce triple and quadruple track systems.
Even if we succeed in providing single and double occupancy, bathrooms and other shared facilities pose serious risks to students. If meeting an infected person is risky, imagine living with one. The masks, social distancing and hand sanitizers cant save you when you live and share facilities with an infected person.
If there is one group we should do everything to protect, it is the University Teacher population. In this group you would find the old, the sick and people with pre-existing conditions that make them vulnerable to Covid-19. I will think twice before endangering our academics. In a country where we normally don’t know the diseases we carry until death reveals it, I will be cautious.
In order for the president’s proposals to work and not endanger our wards and teachers, there must be a comprehensive system in place to test and retest students and teachers before they are admitted into residence. Keep in mind that one infection in a hall or dormitory will spread like wildfire.
Source:A1radioonline.com|101.11MHZ|Ghana
