THE government has closed schools nationwide because there was a risk of Covid-19 infection, said Minister of Education Dr Radzi Jidin today.

According to the minister, the closure of schools in conditional movement control order (CMCO) areas already covered 74% of public schools.

He said the CMCO for all states excluding Kelantan, Perlis and Pahang was effective till December 6, while schools were scheduled to end on December 17 or December 18.

“This means that after the CMCO, students only had nine or 10 days of school left.

“As such, the ministry decided, after consulting the National Security Council (NSC) and Ministry of Health, to extend the closure until the end of the year,” said Radzi in a written reply.

“The Ministry of Education also decided to close the remaining 26% of schools (in the non CMCO areas) as data analysis showed there was an increase in Covid-19 cases, close contacts and quarantine cases with students, teachers and school staff in the CMCO states.

Radzi said the decision to close all the schools will affect 1.1 million students, 99,500 teachers and 20,400 school employees.

The minister was responding to a question from Dr Kelvin Yii (PH-Bandar Kuching) about the extended closure.

However, there was no follow-up question because, under the new rules, the government is only required to give a written reply in minister’s question time.

The new set of Parliament protocols, which limits Dewan Rakyat sessions to 80 MPs only, began on Monday. – November 10, 2020.