Minister of State for Education, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, has said the Federal Government has started considering full reopening schools.
Nwajiuba said this during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday in Abuja.
Though he said no date has been fixed yet for full schools’ resumption, the minister urged protesting students to “be patient with FG”.
He explained that the government had continued to engage stakeholders, some of whom have expressed readiness to resume fully.
Schools in the country have been shut for over three months to prevent further spread of COVID-19 which has caused the death of over 1,000 people in Nigeria.
However, students in exit classes, mainly JSS3 and SSS3 students, resumed earlier this month to commence their final examinations.
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Many Nigerians had felt that the resumption of exit students was an indication that other students would resume soon.
The minister has now expressed optimism that the date for resumption is “around the corner”, adding that he and Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, met some stakeholders in tertiary education on Monday on the issue.
Nwajiuba noted that about 78 privately-owned universities were insisting that they were ready for resumption while the response from government-owned universities was still “50-50.”
He said that after aggregating opinions, he would return to the PTF to review the situation and then go ahead to make a pronouncement.
The Minister added;
I urge our students who have actually exercised a lot of patience along with their parents … I urge you to bear with us a little bit more. The rioting needs to stop; there is nothing to riot about. We don’t want to bandy around dates. We remain positive.
However, even if the government allows tertiary institutions to resume, most public universities will not due to an ongoing nationwide strike by university lecturers, ASUU, over welfare demands.
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The union has ASUU through its President, Biodun Ogunyemi, has now vowed to continue the strike during an interactive session with critical stakeholders at the University of Port Harcourt on Saturday, August 22.
Ogunyemi said ASUU is demanding that the Federal Government implement its 2012 universities needs assessment, adding that the union’s demands are genuine and in the interest of the nation.
