The announcement last week that schools in Malaysia will reopen on June 24th may have caused some concern for parents who are worried about the health of their children, and fair enough. There is a pandemic out there after all.

That being said, the Education Ministry has announced that officials from the ministry will be conducting random inspections of schools in order to gauge the efficacy of the standard operating procedures (SOP) that have been put in place to contain Covid-19.

In an interview with Berita Harian, the Education Minister himself, Mohd Radzi Md Jidin, has pledged to take on these inspections personally, saying “I’ve asked everyone in the ministry, state and district departments, including myself, to go to the schools unannounced.”

He added that the whole purpose of these inspections is not to punish schools, but instead to help the ministry evaluate just how well the SOPs are being implemented as well as to have a first hand view on the level of preparedness our schools are at.

The governments announcement regarding the reopening of schools only applies for upper secondary students who are due to sit for important exams such as SPM, SVM, STPM and STAM. Radzi also reiterated that cooperation between parents and teachers will be vital in order to achieve full compliance with the new norms.

This essentially means that parents must also assist through their compliance with rules introduced when they send and pick up their children from schools and what not.