Covid-19 screening tests for pupils: MoE to issue notification

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Education (MoE) will issue a letter of notification on the implementation of the Covid-19 rotation screening tests for primary school pupils.

In a statement on Saturday, MoE said the Covid-19 rotation screening tests must be implemented every Wednesday, which is a schooling day.

MoE also recommended that the ruling also applied to all private educational institutions which are registered under the ministry.

“MoE welcomes the advice of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and will implement 10 per cent of Covid-19 screening test samples on a weekly basis under a rotation system in line with the National Covid-19 Testing Strategy (NTS) set by MOH.

“MoE has supplied the Covid19 self-test kits to its primary schools to ensure the screening tests can be implemented according to the Covid-19 selftest procedure in the Guidelines for School Management and Operation 3.0,” said the statement.

On Friday, Minister of Health, Khairy Jamaluddin was reported to have said that primary school pupils must undergo the Covid-19 screening tests on a weekly basis starting from this Monday (Nov 29). He said the measure was part of the NTS and is aimed at preventing the proliferation of the education cluster in schools.

Khairy said the screening tests must be conducted on the pupils regardless of whether they have symptoms or otherwise.