Haze: No school closures tomorrow

All schools in the country including the ones in Johor which had to be closed today due to the haze will operate as normal tomorrow, the Education Ministry said in a statement here today.

The ministry said the schools would have to open as normal Thursday as its monitoring of the haze situation as at 4pm today found that almost all the worst affected areas experienced a drop in the Air Pollutants Index (API) reading.

It said although some areas still had moderate to unhealthy air quality, closed door learning activities could continue.

"State and District Education Departments must also continue to monitor API readings which are issued from time to time by the authorities," the ministry said.

It added that should there be a marked change in the situation for the worse, those vested with the authority to make decisions on whether to close schools could act accordingly based on the ministry's guidelines.

According to the Department of Environment's API Monitoring stations, at 4pm today, 17 areas had readings at the unhealthy level; 28 moderate and seven good.