Parents have called me expressing their fear of sending their children to school – Prof Prasad

The Leader of National Federation Party, Professor Biman Prasad says parents from throughout the country have called him expressing their fear about sending their children to school when the third wave is raging in the community.

Professor Prasad says the decision by the Government to ignore sound advice and risk unvaccinated students even as young as four to five years old to COVID-19 is sheer negligence.

He adds a month ago, they called on government to reveal its plan of action should a third wave of the pandemic sweep across the nation, but as usual they kept quiet.

Prasad says instead, it intensely and solely focused on tourism and once again is putting all its eggs in one basket.

The NFP Leader also questioned why the Prime Minister and the Attorney General are silent when a crisis is developing right before their eyes and whether they are waiting for the crisis to worsen before they step in and portray themselves as saviours.

Prasad adds no government with compassion and care for the people would put the lives of its citizens at risk, despite knowing fully well that the public health and medical facilities and care is incapable of handling a massive health crisis.

He also says in this case we are talking about children in primary school and in early childhood education centres and surely, the government is not intellectually impaired so as not to see and hear what is going around.

He says the Education Minister, Premila Kumar has embraced a UNESCO report to justify why face-to-face learning does not drive community transmission.

Prasad further says that Kumar is brandishing a WHO report to claim children contracting COVID-19 have milder symptoms.

Prasad says the Permanent Secretary for Education, Dr Anjeela Jokhan had said that schools should install more fans and open doors and windows of classrooms to prevent the spread of COVID-19 if social distancing is not possible.

The NFP leader adds that both deliberately ignore the fact that over 99% of our schools are community run institutions or owned by religious and cultural organisations.

Prasad claims for the last two years, many schools have not received full grants and the ministry is making it difficult for the management to vire funds from one allocation to another.

He also says the Minister and her Permanent Secretary should ask the FijiFirst government to improve hospitals by at least removing grass growing on the walls of CWM Hospital and giving the buildings a fresh coat of paint before barking orders at school managements.

He says whatever happens, this government will bear the wrath of people at the ballot booths in the elections.

Meanwhile, Minister for Education, Premila Kumar had earlier said that research is showing that schools are not the super-spreaders of COVID-19.

She adds physical distancing cannot be practiced in schools but to offset that, our ventilation in schools is far better than compared to many other schools in the world.

Kumar says the decision to open schools or any other decision on schools is made based on scientific data and advice from the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, WHO and UNICEF.

She had also stated that parents who are not willing to send their children to school will have to make arrangements with the heads of schools or engage in homeschooling.

We have sent questions to the Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama, Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Minister for Education Premila Kumar and the Permanent Secretary for Education Dr Anjeela Jokhan.