DILI (UCAN): Schools and universities in Timor-Leste a scheduled to reopen on June 15 after being closed for more than two months due to the Covid-19 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic.
The government allowed churches and commercial centres to resume operations at the end of May after no new cases were reported for several weeks.
However, health minister, Odete Maria Freitas Belo, schools they must abide by Covid-19 health protocols.
“The safety, security and happiness of children must be the top priority. Students have to wear a mask. Each school has to prepare hand-washing facilities and ensure physical distancing,” she said, adding that schools not prepared to follow health standards should not reopen.
The Cristal Foundation said its schools were ready to reopen. Salesian Father Manuel Pinto, the spiritual director of the Cristal schools, said Catholic schools must set a good example in applying health protocols.
Jesuit Father Roberto Maaghop Boholst, director of St. Ignatius of Loyola College in Kasait, west of Dili, said his school was also ready to restart lessons. Apart from providing masks and hand sanitisers, students would be made to wash their hands at the school gates.
However, youth and sports minister, Dulce de Jesus Soares, said more than 940 elementary and junior high schools needed masks and that the ministry was trying to address the shortfall.
