GUJRAT: Owners of several private schools have expressed reservations over the government’s orders that the school managements screen their students and staff for Covid-19 on their own.

They were of the view that none of the available staff was trained to conduct screening and collect samples of students.

The Punjab government has selected at least 18 educational institutes of Gujrat out of the 237 across the province where random sampling of at least 200 students, teachers and staff will be done in each institute.

The local health and education authorities had on Saturday held a meeting with the focal persons of these 18 institutes, including nine private and eight government schools as well as a private college. The focal persons were reportedly told that the government would provide testing kits to them for random sampling, which would have to be done by the school managements on their own.

The focal persons were also given a demonstration by the health officials on how to collect samples.

Govt had asked school managements to conduct Covid-19 tests on their own

However, the managements expressed inability to perform a task for which they did not have trained human resource.

Moreover, official sources said the authorities had not yet provided testing kits to any institute till Monday, while senior classes in all schools, colleges and universities across the country were going to resume on Tuesday (today).

Gujrat Education Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chaudhry Aurangzaib told this correspondent that the health department had already imparted daylong training to the representatives of schools, and dispelled the impression that conducting the screening was difficult.

Meanwhile, Mr Aurangzaib suspended principals of at least three government high schools for failing to adopt standard operating procedures for the reopening of schools, while show-cause notices were issued to heads of a couple of other schools.

The action was taken following surprise visits by district administration officials to different schools.

The CEO also dismissed an assistant education officer of Karianwala, Saadia Shehzadi, from service for being absent from duty even after her leave ended.

Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2020