Schools open for new term with protective measures

Schools in Maldives opened for the new term on Sunday with protective measures in place against COVID-19.

With the changes brought to the new academic year, after a 21-day term break, schools re-opened for the second term.

Due to the increasing number of positive cases in the country, Education Ministry has implemented additional measures to protect students.

The Ministry instructed that schools in Male' where grades 1 to 8 are taught to formulate the timetable for the first week in a manner in which students would only have to attend school on two days. However, if student safety can be ensured, schools were allowed to bring in students more than twice a week. 

Additionally, like the previous term, students would have to undergo a temperature check upon arrival at school and sanitize themselves as well. In addition to this, the school session will have to be shortened.

Meanwhile, all activities require social distancing and any that require masks to be removed have been barred for the time being. 

Ministry of Education further urged all to adhere to the guidelines set in place by the Health Protection Agency (HPA). 

After a long period of recording low numbers, Maldives has been seeing a surge of cases since the new year, with the positivity rate in the greater Male’ area currently at 14 percent. For the past three days, over 900 cases were reported daily, with 954 people testing positive on Saturday alone.