KUALA PILAH (Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia), Oct 4 (NNN-Bernama) — A total of 143,000 students in Malaysia, except in Kedah and Johor states, have started face-to-face school sessions on Monday and Sunday, after all schools in the country were closed for about six months due to the spread of COVID-19.
Senior Education Minister Dr Radzi Jidin said of the total, 94,000 students from schools in Group B – Negeri Sembilan, Pahang, Melaka, Selangor, Federal Territory (FT) of Putrajaya, FT of Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Perak, Sabah, Perlis, Sarawak and FT of Labuan – began their face-to-face school sessions on Monday.
The remaining were students in Group A involving Terengganu, Kelantan and Langkawi who returned to school yesterday.
“Overall, the attendance rate is very good and procedures and guidelines for school reopening are also well complied with.
“The ministry’s approach of bringing the students back to school is because we want our education system to move again,” he told reporters here, Monday.
Meanwhile, he said the response from parents was very encouraging, however, some of them still felt that this was not the right time to send their children back to school as they are worried about the COVID-19 situation.
Commenting further, Radzi said no action would be taken against parents and they have the option not to send their children to school but they have to notify the school in advance.
“The trend is similar when we reopened schools in June last year and early March this year. Some parents chose not to send their children to school in the early stage but over time, we can see that the attendance rate is improving,” he said.
— NNN-BERNAMA