Sultan Quadri

SUMMARY

There is a press release that was allegedly circulated by the ministry of education which suggests that the federal government has ordered the closure of schools nationwide till November


CONCLUSION


This claim is false. The Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiu in a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, April 21, 20,20 did not specify that there was an extension till November. The body of the press release was extracted from a news story in March, 2020


FULL TEXT


A viral press release dated April 21, 2020, which carries the name of the Federal Ministry of Education suggests that the federal government has ordered the closure of schools till November, 2020.


On March 19 the federal Ministry of Education ordered the closure of tertiary, secondary and primary schools nationwide through its permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sunny Echono. This was reported by business day, here


National University Commission (NUC) through Deputy executive secratary, Suleiman Ramon Yusuf through a circular ordered the closure of all universities from Monday, March 23, 2020 and will last for a period of one month. This was reported by The Guardian Nigeria, here.

The closure of unity schools in the country was announced by the Federal ministry of education effective from Thursday, March 26, 2020.

The viral press release was titled “FG ORDERS CLOSURE OF SCHOOLS TILL NOVEMBER, 2020 DUE TO THE PANDEMIC OF COVID19”.

It claims that the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, Sunny Echono confirmed the decision of the alleged closure to premium times.

VERIFICATION

Minister of State for Eduaction, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuva yesterday, Tuesday April 21, 2020 during a press briefing noted Ministry Ministry of Education had in March shut tertiary institutions, secondary and primary schools in the country as precautionary measures to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

The Minister while noting that rendering educational services to the masses is in the concurrent list, said the Federal Government will communicate a new resumption date to all stakeholders.

He also announced the indefinite postponement of NECO and WAEC
He noted that as soon as the federal minister arrive at a definite time, they will re-communicate that.

He said, “We will also be looking at what we will do in order for schools to reopen. As you will recall, we asked that schools vacate in the late part of March as soon as this broke”.

“Now it will be a coordinated effort among all the states because the lockdown in various parts will definitely affect how students go to school or not or how teachers come to school or not. So it goes with that saying that nobody can reopen schools now except we coordinate all of that effort,” he added.


The body of the viral press release was extracted from a news article by Premium Times published on March 19,2020, here.