Rumors on reopening of educational centers on July 3 are false

KABUL (Pajhwok): A number of social media users posted reports that claim educational centers would reopen on July 3 while the Ministry of Public Health rejected the reports as false and said no decision had been made on the regard yet.

MoPH said that a professional committee comprised from representatives of relevant organs would be created on Wednesday to discuss the plan on reopening of the centers in consideration to health guidelines and vaccination program.

Rumors: A Facebook page named, ‘Khabar Taza’ in a post said, “Breaking: schools and universities would be reopened on next Saturday, (July 3).” The page did not mention the source of the news.

Hundreds of people liked the post but dozens others called it false and asked for source of the report.

One of Facebook users in comment to the post has said, “Around 100 people lose their lives in the quarantine, if the educational centers reopened, it would destroy Afghanistan.”

Another Facebook user, Princess Khalid also claimed that the plan for reopening educational centers prepared by the ministries of higher education and education had been shared with the MoPH and approved.

He said that all schools, universities and other educational centers would be reopened on July 3 based on the plan. Students would not be allowed to enter their centers without wearing masks and hugging and kissing is strictly forbidden, he added.

Lessons would intensively continue for a period of one month and observing teams from MoPH would be present in all centers to enforce mask wearing, he added.

Another Facebook page, ‘Afshagar’ has believed and copied the above post. The post is liked by 900 users and commented by 150 people, who most of them said that the plan was faulty.

Fact checking:

However, MoPH in a statement rejected the social media rumors as false and asked people not to believe in unverified news and avoid publishing them.

The ministry said that no any decisions have so far taken about reopening of educational centers.

The source said that the committee would be comprised of representatives from MoPH, ministries of higher education and education, Afghanistan Medical Council, Technical and Professional Education Authority and some other relevant organs.

Any decision being taken on the regard would be officially shared with the public, the ministry said.

Over, 118,600 people in the country have so far infected with Covid-19 while 4,871 others died of the disease. On the global level, 181 million people have been infected while 3.9 million people died from the virus.

“This Investigative Report was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of Pajhwok and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.”