The Ebonyi State Government has announced that it will re-open schools in the state on Oct. 5, 2020, with the exception of kindergarten and crèches.

The Commissioner for Education, Onyebuchi Chima, announced the plan on Thursday while briefing newsmen at the end of the state’s Executive Council meeting in Abakaliki.

Chima described the executive council meeting as a “good one’’ for the state ministry of education as it approved the memo from the ministry for the re-opening of schools.

“The resumption will be for the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education as academic activities will be ‘staggered’ according to the ministry’s recommendation.

“This means that there will be two sections for schools: morning and afternoon sessions with the morning sessions starting from 8 .a.m to 12 p.m., while the afternoon will start from 12.15 p.m. to 4.p.m.

“The junior primary section: 1–3 and junior secondary 1-3 classes will have their sessions in the morning, while the senior primary: 4–6 and senior secondary 1-3 classes will run in the afternoon session.

“This implies that each session will run for four hours and we will dedicate the first two to three weeks of academic resumption to intensive studies to conclude the remaining programmes of the 2019/ 2020 academic sessions,” he said.

“We will subsequently conduct a mini-promotional examination to enable the schools to move fully into the 2020/21 academic session.

“The ministry applied, and the executive council approved that we will not resume kindergarten and crèches in the state for pupils from 0-5 years.

“This is because we know that the COVID-19 pandemic is subsiding, but we should not give it the opportunity to spring its ugly head again.”