PETALING JAYA, Sept 14 (Sin Chew Daily) – The education ministry has urged parents to conduct COVID-19 tests on their children before sending them to school when schools reopen next month.

Many parents are agreeable to this idea, but they also urge the ministry to provide additional allocations to purchase RTK-Antigen test kits for the students to reduce the burden of both the parents as well as school authorities.

National Union of Heads of Schools president Lim Bee Khim said the education ministry had instructed the school authorities to conduct RTK-Antigen tests on school children who are not feeling well, adding that the school authorities will keep reminding parents not to send their ill children to the school.

She said parents should also conduct RTK-Antigen tests on their children who are not feeling well, if they could afford it.

“We are worried the children present the symptoms only after arriving at the school.”

She also said the finance ministry had earlier proposed that school authorities conduct the tests on children at the school gate but did not specify whether the government would provide the allocations.

For the safety of students, the schools hope to provide free test kits to the students every week so that their parents can do the tests on them before coming to school.

She said part of the school administrative expenditures (PCG) could be used to purchase RTK-Antigen test kits and sanitizers, and she believed the parents-teachers’ associations and school boards would also provide the subsidies.

“We are now worried about the cost of conducting tests for students who have come into close contact with a COVID-positive student. What if these students also test positive and their parents and families may be required to go for screening tests too, and who will bear the cost of such tests?”