Writing for kalangfm.com, Glenda Popot reports that Prime Minister James Marape says primary and Secondary schools will resume a week later, on Monday May 4.

 

The National Operations Centre team and the Education Department are finalising details of new protocols and guidelines the schools will operate according to when classes resume, to protect students from the virus.

 

Among the new measures include social distancing and avoiding the overcrowding in classrooms.

 

Marape says the government wants to bring back normalcy to the country at the earliest and for people to live normally within Covid-19 protocols, and education is a top priority.

 

Marape says his government could have taken the easy way out and shut down schools for the rest of this year and start fresh next year.

 

But he says it is the morale right of the children to education and his government wants to ensure its not sabotaged.

 

Marape said the month of May would be used to trial out the new education protocols in schools to see that the new guidelines were working, in the hope that normal schooling could take place until the end of the year.

 

If there were a threat to the lives of students during May, schools would be closed.