On Friday afternoon, the Ministry of Education announced that secondary schools will only be opened based on adolescent vaccination rollout.
Below is the statement:
The Ministry of Education wishes to reiterate what was announced last Friday that the re-opening of Secondary Schools for face to face teaching will be based on the national vaccination programme for adolescents across Guyana.
The advice received from the Ministry of Health is that it is better to allow students to be vaccinated and be fully inoculated before returning to the school’s physical environment.
For an adolescent to be deemed fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine they must receive two doses 21 -28 days apart with an additional seven to 14 days after the second dose to be fully protected. This would mean that the different secondary schools will return to face to face instruction on different dates.
An example of this would be students of Queen’s College, St. Rose’s High School and the Bishops’ High School were vaccinated on September 1, 2021. The students there were given September 28th as the date their second dose will be administered. Therefore, these schools will be reopened within seven to 14 days after the second dose is administered.
Each secondary school will be informed of their respective reopening dates. As it relates to the other levels, the plans that were previously announced stand without variation.
The school term starts on the 6th of September 2021. Where schools are not reopening for face to face instruction they will be engaged online or otherwise. Parents are encouraged to visit the Ministry of Education’s website to see the reopening plan for the respective schools.
We encourage as many parents as possible to consent for their children aged 12 to 17 to receive the vaccine which will serve to protect them from the effects of COVID-19. We also encourage our parents and teachers who have not yet been vaccinated to get vaccinated so that we can all protect each other.
