KUCHING, Nov 13 — All nurseries and kindergartens in Kuching will remain closed during the conditional movement control order (CMCO) despite the earlier announcement that they could reopen if there was an urgent need from frontliner parents.
The Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) decided this following a discussion on the matter yesterday morning.
“We have discussed this morning, and we see that the situation in Kuching is not stable and looking at the distribution of positive cases which is not concentrated in one area. I worry that it will spread to nurseries and kindergartens as the cases today (yesterday) also include children,” said SDMC chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah at a Covid-19 press conference yesterday.
Thus, the committee will still require nurseries and kindergartens in Kuching to remain closed until the situation stabilises, despite receiving requests from operators to reopen, he said.
The committee had announced on Oct 29 that all early childhood education institutions in Kuching which is in the red zone were to be closed.
On Wednesday, Minister of Welfare, Community Well-being, Women, Family and Childhood Development Datuk Seri Fatimah Abdullah announced that nursery and kindergarten operators in Kuching could forward their request to the SDMC to reopen should there be urgent demand.
She told a press conference at the State Legislative Assembly that this would be a relief for frontliners who did not have anyone to look after their young children while they were at work.
Meanwhile, the SDMC is proposing to allow tuition centres in green zones in the state to resume operations.
However, the committee is still awaiting decision by the relevant ministry, said Uggah.
