The Minister of Education and Higher Education, Dr. Tariq Al Majzoub, is allocating more efforts to ensure the health of the Lebanese students and impede any infection or potential transmission of the coronavirus.
After he instructed all educational institutions to close their doors for a week, as of February 29th until March 8th, the minister has now issued a new circular with new instructions addressed to all the educational institutions in the country.
The circular comes with the purpose of “preserving the health and safety of students, administrative and educational bodies,” in coordination with the Minister of Public Health, and according to the requirements of the public interest.
The Ministry of Education, therefore, requests all directors of public and private educational institutions to abide by the following:
1 – Commit as a precaution to close all public and private educational institutions during the previously instructed dates.
2- Supervise the process of cleaning and sterilizing educational institutions “in accordance with Circular Mechanisms No. 7 of 2/21/2020” during the closing period and after the reopening of schools on the stated date.
3- Emphasize the circulation of awareness materials for coronavirus prevention among the administrative and educational bodies and all employees of the institution, especially for students when reopening these institutions.
4 – Prepare emergency programs to end the educational curricula by ensuring compensation for what the students lost during the school closing period by any of the available educational means.
These prevention measures are part of the efforts that the ministries of health and education are allocating to protect the Lebanese students and hence their families from any potential infection and transmission.
Again, these are precautionary measures because, so far, the situation with the coronavirus in Lebanon is being contained.
The first infected patient has tested negative and has recovered, as confirmed early on Tuesday, and all tests conducted on people suspected to have coronavirus were also negative.
Moreover, the Health Ministry has ensured that government hospitals across Lebanon are now prepared to deal with any potential spread of the virus.