Schools found in rural parts of Ethiopia will commence education on October 19, with the covid-19 precautions, the Ministry of Education announced.

Ministry Public Relations Director Hargua Mammo told The Ethiopian Herald that the Ministry has finalized preparations to commence education in the rural areas where the teaching-learning process will strictly follow Covid-19 precautions.

The facemasks distribution will be finalized this week, the states are expected to deliver sanitizer, and other materials that help combat the Covid-19 pandemic in collaboration with pertinent stakeholders, she added.

Schools will resume education with 20-30 students in a class to keep social distancing, she said.

Makeup classes and other means of portion coverage will be done to enable students competent prior to starting the actual class, according to her.

She further said that the makeup class will not affect this academic year's education.

Meanwhile, the Ministry announced that it finalizes preparations to distribute 50 million facemasks for 46,000 schools in the country.

It's been some six months now since all schools including higher education in Ethiopia have been interrupted due to the outbreak of COVID-19.

However, currently, the government has been making preparations to resume classes this Ethiopian academic year with adequate planning aimed at combating the spread of the virus in schools.

The facemasks distribution will commence this week and additional 500,000 facemasks will also be disseminated to teachers throughout the nation very soon.

The facemasks are believed to help combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic during the face-to-face teaching and learning process.

Accordingly, preparations are also underway to distribute COVID-19 testing thermometers to regional states as there are shortages to provide for all schools.