Educational institutes ease testing requirements

Colleges and universities will no longer carry out the nucleic acid test for all people, but conduct the test for key staff members on campus, said the Ministry of Education on Friday.

The ministry's leading group on responding to COVID-19 issued a working scheme on the ministry's website to adjust and optimize the COVID-19 test strategies on campus to ensure the safety of teachers and students and the normal order of campus.

Except for students or teachers returning to campus from different cities, other teachers and students of higher education institutions are not required to provide nucleic acid certificates for entering the school and public areas of the campus. The schools, with the approval of local authorities, can formulate health inspection measures to check the outsiders who want to enter the campus, it said.

Primary and secondary schools and kindergartens can carry out appropriate nucleic acid tests such as inspection and random inspection of teachers and students, according to actual needs. Teachers and students do not need to provide nucleic acid certificates to enter the school, but outsiders must provide a nucleic acid certificate to enter the campus, it said.

Schools free of the epidemic will carry out normal offline teaching activities. During the epidemic period, primary and secondary schools and kindergartens will adopt strict closed management, and colleges and universities can implement zoning management, it said.

If there are infected cases in colleges or universities, the schools should promptly take measures to reduce people-to-people contact, implement online teaching and adjust teaching arrangements.

If the infected people are found in a primary or secondary school, the education administrative department at the county or district level needs to work with local health and disease control departments to implement prevention and control measures.

If a kindergarten has infected cases, it can be temporarily closed, and the teaching activities need to be recovered promptly after the infection.

The scheme also asked the local health, disease control and education departments of where higher education institutions are located to guide and support the schools to build campus health stations, and scientifically determine the number of beds according to the number of teachers and students on campus and the need for epidemic prevention.

Institutions of higher education need to set up fever clinics and quarantine areas, adopt a 24-hour on-duty working mechanism, and publish consulting phone numbers or online service platforms for teachers and students, it said.

Primary and secondary schools should strengthen the construction of campus health rooms equipped with necessary medical drugs, set up health observation rooms and provide temporary observation for people with fever and other symptoms, and guide parents to take students home safely, it said.

It asked the schools to reserve traditional Chinese medicine, symptomatic treatment drugs and antigen detection reagents based on at least 15 percent to 20 percent of the campus' total population in a dynamic way.

The schools also need to store sufficient stock of masks, disinfection supplies, safety temperature measuring equipment and other commonly used epidemic prevention materials, to ensure the supplies can be used for at least one week, and set up a stable supply channel to ensure adequate use in emergency situations, it said.