The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Wednesday donated 700,000 masks to Kenya for distribution to schools for safe reopening on Jan. 4.
The UNICEF Kenya Country Representative, Maniza Zaman, said in Nairobi that the organisation fully supported the government’s phased reopening of schools.
`The latest evidence confirms that the risks to children of being out of school are much higher than the risks they encounter in schools,’’ she noted.
Zaman said that there was the need to ensure learners’ safety when they would go back to classes.
She said that the masks would be distributed to the most vulnerable schools by the ministry of education, based on average class size, monetary poverty and equity within counties.
Zaman added that schools in informal settlements, special needs schools and schools with the highest pupil-to-classroom ratio would benefit from the masks. (Xinhua/NAN)
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