A grouping under the tag ‘Concerned Students’ has demanded the reopening of all schools in Malawi by February 22, saying no one knows when the Coronavirus pandemic will end.
The grouping which consist of students from different schools in Malawi made the demand on Thursday at a press briefing which was held in the commercial city of Blantyre.
Speaking at the briefing the group’s national publicity secretary, Kelvin Kasanga said government must open schools with immediate effect and end the extension on the closure of schools as a Covid-19 control measure.
Kasanga said government has not considered that educated people are the future of the country hence the need to lightly cover the right to education that largely complements the right to life.
He added that all students strongly believe that COVID-19 preventive measures could be well observed at schools rather than at bars, markets that are not even on lockdown yet more people converge for shopping on daily basis.
The publicity secretary further wondered why government has overlooked findings from last year’s closure of schools which indicated that more girls are at risk of early marriages, early pregnancies, contacting sexually transmitted infections as they will spend most of their time at home.
“The government did not scientifically consider that neither Scientists nor doctors know when the pandemic will come to an end hence the need to resort to the normalization of the way of living while observing preventive measures towards the pandemic.
“All students must be in their respective schools by Monday, 22February, 202I. With the above highlighted points, we as concerned students, request the government that schools be reopened as soon as possible,” said Kasanga.
The grouping says it expect that the government will come out clear after 48 hours from 10th February, 2021 and tell the general public that it will use the stipulated time frame of 2 weeks to do all possible means for schools to reopen by 22nd February.
