The federal government will not be reopening schools according to schedule after 80 per cent of parents kicked against the idea.

This was stated by the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, while speaking at Thursday’s briefing of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 in Abuja.

According to him, a survey showed that most parents are opposed to schools reopening at the moment, as they don’t want their children to be used as experiment.

“We are keeping the children at home because you can’t see coronavirus with your naked eyes and can’t know if a child is asymptomatic or carrying the virus. If he does, and he goes back and infects another person, there is no way for us to know.

“Prior to that, the ministry carried out a perception survey around the country and 80 per cent of the responses were assurances from parents that they’re not willing to experiment with their children. If there are parents willing to experiment – to check whether it can work or not, we can invite them to a test,” Nwajiuba said.

Nigeria currently has 22,614 confirmed cases of COVID-19.

About 7,822 patients have been discharged, while 549 have died.