The Minister of Education and Youth, Fayval Williams has sought to assure that schools are prepared, including being able to conduct limited testing for COVID-19, when full resumption of face-to-face classes takes place on Monday, March 7.

Williams was responding to questions from the Opposition Member of Parliament for St Andrew South East, Julian Robinson as to the state of readiness for schools and whether testing for COVID-19 will be conducted inside the institutions. This was during last Thursday’s sitting of the Standing Finance Committee that examined the $912 billion Estimates of Expenditure for the 2022/23 fiscal year.

She said 5,000 COVID-19 self-test kits for COVID-19 have already been issued to schools and more are being acquired.

In terms of overall readiness, Williams reminded that schools have most recently been opened since last November. She said the Ministry of Health and Wellness would have conducted inspections in all schools with only about six not being given the seal of approval for reopening. She also noted that schools have been operating for several months but without their full cohort of students. All are required to have sanitisation stations, proper signage, and isolation areas she said.

When schools reopen on Monday after the mid-term break it will mark just six days shy of two years since they were shuttered on March 13, 2020. That was three days after Jamaica confirmed its first case of COVID-19.

Since then, some students, in particular those sitting external examinations have returned to the classroom but for brief periods. Thousands of others have not had any contact with the school system since.