Spot checks on schools to ensure SOP compliance - Education Minister

Spot checks will be carried out on schools to ensure their level of preparedness and compliance with the standard operating procedures (SOPs) ahead of their reopening on June 24, said Education Minister Dr Mohd Radzi Md Jidin.

He said the ministry, together with the state education departments and district education offices, would carry out the spot checks over the next two weeks, but insisted that the aim was not to punish the schools.

“If there are schools not complying with the SOP, we have two weeks to make improvements… if there are weaknesses in the SOP of any of the schools, we will go and see how we can assist them,” he told a special press conference on the reopening of schools here today.

Mohd Radzi had earlier announced that schools would reopen on June 24, involving 500,444 students and 2,440 national secondary schools and a number of international schools.

He also said that schools would constantly sanitise items which students usually touched, like door knobs, to ensure cleanliness while temperature checks would be carried out on everyone entering the school grounds.

He said that students who were not well and showed symptoms would be taken to an isolation room and their parents would be contacted before the District Health Centre is notified.

Mohd Radzi also said that the school sessions would be carried out in stages and the times would be announced soon.

“We are worried that if the parents themselves decide to send their children to schools in the morning and we do not do it in stages, then there would be congestion at the schools.

-- BERNAMA