Education

COVID-19: Parents Call Out Grace High School, Gbagada For Allegedly Moving Students To Other Hotels Despite Paying N1.5M For School Facility

Aggrieved parents and guardians of Grace High School have called out the school’s authorities for blatantly ignoring the protocols of COVID-19 as laid down by the NCDC and government at all levels by asking their returning students to go and stay in hotels in order to ”be safe”, City News has learnt.

According to our sources, the school’s authorities have now told parents and guardians that students will now have to go and stay in nearby hotels and not the school’s boarding facilities because the school have found itself in a difficult situation.

Two of the parents of the school who spoke on the condition of anonymity told City News that the school despite collecting N1.5 million as school authorities fees which includes fees for boarding facilities have now told them that their children will not be allowed in the school’s hostels.

The parents are now calling on the Governor of the state and the state Ministry of education to stop Grace High School from embarking on such move because of the deadly pandemic and the psyche of the children which might be tainted by staying in that kind of environment.

Below is the message sent to parents and guardians by the school authorities;

Good evening our dear Parents.
It is pertinent to explain the intricacies that are involved in opening of schools for the students to write Examination and if possible Stay in the boarding house due to the present circumstance in which we find ourselves;
1 Schools Must get approval from the Ministry of Education indicating that they are COVID-19 Guidelines compliant. This involves comprehensive inspections of the schools twice and approval given.
We are happy to inform you that we have got approval to allow students to come to school for revision and eventually write their examination. The Ministry of Education officials are going round to enforce their rules. The officials have visited our school and we have got approval. ‘ ” ” Grace Schools ” has not got APPROVAL to run the boarding house during this pandemic period

Any school that did not get approval for the two risks severe sanction by the Ministry.
Approval for running the hostel involves;
1. Provision of some infrastructure and equipment that must not be shared by the inmates. This is compulsory.
2. Having a large space that will guarantee social distancing of at least two metres apart
Only very few students will be able to occupy a large room with the social distancing guidelines.
We can not afford to flout the Government rules.. Presently we do not have enough space that can guarantee social distancing guidelines as stipulated and we can not risk endangering the life of these innocent children. We are indeed concerned about SAFETY and nothing else. We are law abiding and we can not go against the directive of the government.
Please kindly bear with us, let us join hands together to find solution to this problem.
We are always at your service and we promise to always give our very best in serving you, our dear parents.
We really thank you for your patience, understanding, and cooperation.
The good Lord will have mercy on us and completely eradicate this pandemic ( which is the cause of this problem ) in Nigeria in Jesus name.
Please bear with us and kindly help us to achieve our objective of ensuring that all our SS 3 students have excellent results in their WASSCE.
Thank you.

We tried reaching the school administrator, Mrs. Edun but we couldn’t get her as at press time.