YANGON, Aug. 26 (Xinhua) -- Myanmar government will temporarily close all high schools again after the country recently saw a drastic rise in the number of COVID-19 local transmission cases.
All high schools for the academic year of 2020-2021 will be temporarily shut down starting Thursday, Dr. Tin Maung Win, deputy director general of Basic Education Department under the Ministry of Education, told Xinhua on Wednesday.
"The national-level Central Committee for Prevention, Control and Treatment of COVID-19 has instructed region and state governments and the Education Ministry to close all high schools due to the current situation of COVID-19 outbreak," he said.
As part of containment measures of COVID-19, a total of 408 government's high schools and 189 private schools in Yangon region will close starting Thursday, Yangon Region Social Affairs Minister Naing Ngan Lin told Xinhua.
"We are instructed to do this for effective control of COVID-19 and the directive does not say how long the school closure will last," the regional minister said.
From July 21 to Aug. 21, a total of 6,526 out of 7,173 high schools reopen across the country, according to the ministry's recent data.
Myanmar's academic year usually starts in June, this year's term was delayed due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country.
The country has been seeing spike in number of locally transmitted cases of COVID, with 70 cases reported on Wednesday alone, bringing the number of infection cases to 574 in total.
COVID-19 was first detected in Myanmar on March 23 this year and its death toll stands at six so far. Enditem
