School calendar set to change in Samoa as schools closed for another week

RNZ News

a day ago

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Samoa's Ministry of Education and Culture chief executive A'eau Christopher Hazelman says the school term calendar is set to change due to prolonged dengue-related closures.
Primary school students in Samoa will have a fourth week of school closure next week, while years 8 to 12 are going into a third week.
A'eau said the week of 11 August would have been week three of term three.
"Beginning from our ECE (early childhood education) centres through the years one to year seven, they have not had any classes over the last three weeks," he said.
"On the first week of term three we had the years eight right up to year 12.
"I want to make sure that people understand that the moment cabinet activated the NEOC - the National Emergency Operations Committee - this is when we now follow the law, the actual Act and the frameworks of NEOC within government - hence the ministry will not make a decision by itself."
A'eau said T-Vet providers and those in universities have also been affected.
He also thanked school teachers and principals for making classes available online, but said they need to look at changes.
Further adding to the time, the government has announced public holiday on 28 and 29 August
for the general election
.
"We now have to look at making amendments and changes to our school calendar," A'eau said.
"I want to make this very clear to all schools and to all parents - we are going to change the school calendar, even to the point that there may be no school holidays between term three and term four to make up the time."
A'eau said they will also look at changing the dates of the national assessments.
There have been six dengue-related deaths
and nearly 8000 clinically-diagnosed cases recorded in Samoa since January.