The governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde, has said schools in the state may resume on July 15 despite rising cases of coronavirus.
The state has so far recorded 29 cases out of which 20 are active as of the time of filing this report.
Mr Makinde while speaking at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Oyo State branch, in Agodi, Ibadan, during a special programme to mark this year’s Worker’s Day, disclosed the suspended second term will last for two more weeks in July while the third term will immediately kick off.
This is coming the same day that the Presidential Task Force on Coronavirus maintained that schools should remain shut down.
Mr Makinde said the government remains hopeful that it will be able to reopen schools by July 15, a “drop-dead date”.
“I was having a discussion with private school owners and the schools are all closed. They rely on the school fees to pay the teachers they have employed. Now, the children are at home, they have to keep the teachers but there is no fund to pay.
“My idea is, we need to let the parents know that this period that their children are at home, we take it as their long vacation. We have a drop-dead date of July 15th. We are hopeful that we will be able to open the schools by July 15th and if we do that, they will complete the two weeks of the second term and immediately start the third term.
“This means there would not be any long holiday again and they will just flip around and start the next (term),” he said.