Local schools will be able to start the new academic year without any significant disruption, Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) deputy director, Kong Chi Meng, announced yesterday during the health authorities’ press briefing on the Covid-19 situation in Macau.
Kong noted that there have been no significant changes on the infections in the city across the last few days. Given this stability, it was decided that from September 1, the start of the new school year with added restrictions will take place for all non-tertiary institutions.
He added that face-to-face classes of higher education institutions can resume as early as September 6.
“After an extensive evaluation, we decided to normally restart the new school year. This is a very important matter that influences a lot of the population and we want to ensure a smooth start of the school year,” Kong said.
To ensure this, the DSEDJ will request all members of the schools’ communities, including students, parents, teachers, and school staff members who have been in places other than Macau, Zhuhai, or Zhongshan, to perform a mandatory nucleic acid test (NAT) at some point in the five days before class resumption.
The NAT will be available through a specific platform and will be conducted in six available testing venues between August 27 and 31 for all members of non-tertiary education. The same tests will be held for universities between September 1 and 5.
“A specific platform has been established for the appointment booking of the schools’ community members,” Kong added, noting also that, similar to what took place during the mass testing of the whole population, the results of these tests will not be uploaded into the health code system, or be used to cross the border.
When asked about the number of people that have failed to return to Macau at least 14 days before the school year kickoff, Kong explained that in such cases, these people will need to be absent from the schools until they complete the 14 days mandatory quarantine.
“There are few people that we know who did not return on time. We don’t know exactly at the moment how many,” the DSEDJ deputy director said, adding, “If they miss [for example] two days to complete the 14 days, this means that they can only return to school after those missing days are complete.”
This means they will need to be absent from classes or work, Kong explained, noting that schools have been instructed to handle those cases carefully and try to understand the reasons behind the delay in returning.
Addressing the health authorities’ previous announcement of the intention to enforce vaccination in schools, the coordinator of the bureau’s Covid-19 Vaccination Operation, Dr. Tai Wa Hou, said that currently, authorities are gathering information on the number of people interested in an outreach program. He added, “we will start with the schools that have more people interested. For those who will have fewer [members interested], we might find a different solution through a centralized plan to aggregate them to other school institutions.”
On the same topic, Kong noted that the current plan is for the DSEDJ to collect data and host seminars in schools across the first two weeks of the new year to promote the vaccination program.
For schools with fewer people interested in receiving a vaccination, the DSEDJ will potentially offer them free transportation so that they can get the vaccine at a different location.
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