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Schools to resume CCA programmes next week with H1N1 precautions
By Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 13 July 2009 2148 hrs

  Students take their temperature in class
 
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SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Education said schools will resume co-curricular activities (CCAs) next week.

It said schools will also take precautions such as temperature-taking and visual screening for flu-like symptoms at the start of sessions.

The ministry said some schools have already resumed CCAs to allow students to train for sports meets or to prepare for the upcoming Singapore Youth Festival.

Life is almost back to normal at Rulang Primary, except that students still have to go through mandatory temperature checks. All co-curricular activities have resumed after being suspended for the last two weeks as an H1N1 precaution.

Low Min Chye, vice principal, Rulang Primary School, said: "CCAs are an important part of our school curriculum. So this is the reason why we decided to resume, but measures are taken such as CCA groups are kept to a small group and very importantly the pupils are kept together for a maximum of 45 minutes."

Besides this, Channel NewsAsia understands that ministry guidelines also state that where possible, students should avoid close contact and be at least two metres apart.

As a precaution, at least one secondary school is known to have stopped one-on-one counselling sessions to minimise close contact.

Over at Republic Polytechnic, a rule restricting students to certain canteens has left some students disgruntled. So the school has decided to ease up a little on that ruling, but said it is in a unique situation where being over-cautious is important.

Ang Keng Loo, senior director, Student Affairs, said: "We don't have a lecture theatre system where everybody sits there and listens. We have groups of students discussing actively throughout the whole day and the amount of interaction they go through, should there be a person who is infected in that group, the transmission is almost like 100 per cent."

One of the reasons for Republic Polytechnic's stricter rules is because of the initial rapid spread of the H1N1 virus among students. 105 students have been infected so far. 97 have recovered.

Latest figures from the Health Ministry show that there are currently 49 H1N1 patients in Singapore hospitals, including a 51-year-old man with diabetes and hypertension in intensive care. - CNA/vm



 


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