Despite facing protest from most parents over the spread of coronavirus in schools, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung demanded that school attendance from June 2 is compulsory. The PAP minister said “morale” is more important over safety:
“The Government cannot make attendance at school voluntary as such a system is not good for the morale of both students and teachers.”
The major concern of Singapore parents is the lack of faith in the government assurance that the virus will not spread among students. Unlike preschools, no prescreen test is done for teachers and staffs.
According to the Education Minister’s earlier POFMA order on States Times Review, 69 school staffs, teachers and students were infected:
“As of Apr 3, 69 students and staff in Ministry of Education (MOE) schools, including the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), were reported to have been infected with COVID-19.”
In his Facebook post, Minister Ong Ye Kung used the government’s manipulated statistics of “community cases” to prove his point:
“Many countries have realised that school cannot be closed indefinitely, and are making plans to re-open theirs – even though their number of community cases is much higher than Singapore’s.”