New academic year starts with strict Covid-19 protocols

Schools in Qatar opened yesterday for the new academic year 2021-22 following blended learning system with 50% of the students attending the classes physically on campus, on a rotation basis. Each student has to attend campus classes for five days in two weeks.Strict Covid-19 preventive and precautionary measures are in place at all schools to prevent the spread of the virus. All government and private schools received students at their campuses on Sunday. Most schools reported a good number of students on the campus on the first day of the academic year. Both the Ministry of Education and Higher Education as well as the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) have adopted a number of measures to protect the children from Covid-19 and for the smooth conduct of the teaching and learning process.MoPH has also issued a number of guidelines highlighting the need to enhance the efforts to fight the pandemic, especially on the occasion of the beginning of the new academic year.In a video message on social media channels, Dr Layla al-Dahnaim, community medicine consultant and the manager of School Health said that several precautionary measures have been taken to ensure the safe return of students to schools which will enhance the efforts to combat Covid-19.“The School Health Department has launched the ‘Back to School Campaign’ in every public school under the theme ‘A safe return to school challenging Covid-19,’ said al-Dahnaim.“We will highlight the most common communicable and infectious diseases among students and how to combat and prevent them, including Covid-19, chickenpox, influenza, lice, infection of the hands, feet, mouth and scabies,” she said.“This aims at improving and supporting students’ health and provide them with all preventive measures against the spread of diseases among them,” she continued.Dr al-Dahnaim also said that many activities and educational lectures are being launched to enhance the health awareness of students about the most common diseases. “This includes how to follow the most important ways of disease prevention in their environment whether at home, school or public places by preparing flyers, educational messages, colouring books and informative posters,” she explained. Dr al-Dahnaim noted that parents also will be involved in the campaign and will receive educational and informative messages on a regular basis. “We would like to emphasise the role of parents in preparing their children to return to school. They must ensure an early bed time, maintain a healthy diet and educate children about preventive measures. They should visit the health centres if the children feel sick,” the official added.