The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST) on Monday decided to close all schools across the country from Tuesday as per the recommendation of the COVID-19 Crisis Management Coordination Centre (CCMCC) reports The Rising Nepal.

A meeting of CMCC on Sunday recommended the government to close schools for 15 days starting from January 15. As per the recommendation, the Ministry has also asked them to adjust this leave with their annual vacations.

According to the daily, the schools are going to close for the third time after March 2020 to control the spread of COVID-19. The Ministry, however, has asked the schools to connect the students with alternative learning even during the vacation.

A statement issued by spokesperson for the ministry Deepak Sharma reads that the ministry decided to close schools from January 11 to January 29 considering the mounting cases of Covid-19 and confirmation of infection of omicron variant of the virus as well as the health and security of the students.

The Ministry has directed the schools to follow Learning Facilitation Guideline 2077 to connect the students with learning from alternative way even in the vacation.

Likewise, the ministry has directed the schools not to conduct any function of parents’ day, annual day and other public programmes at educational institutions.

Similarly, the ministry has made vaccine certificate mandatory while entering academic institutions after January 21.

Meanwhile, the ministry decided to celebrate this year National Yoga Day on January 15 with a slogan “Yoga for All Round Development” through virtual programmes.