The President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana Professor Charles Marfo is of the view that mass testing lecturers and students for COVID-19 would go a long way to assure community members as lectures for final year students are set to begin on June 15.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, on Sunday, May 31, announced that Churches and schools for final year students will resume in June as part of measures to ease the restrictions introduced to slow the spread of the deadly COVID-19.

However, speaking on the Morning Starr, Prof Marfo noted that even though he did not know the strategies government was going to put in place to safeguard lecturers and students as yet, it would be prudent to engage in mass testing.

He noted that even though the exercise would be costly, its an area government should put in some more effort if that is what has to be done to proceed.

He said “because seriously, if we are going to go with this, I don’t know what the strategies are going to be now, we are waiting for the education minister to get in touch with us. But I think its a great suggestion, it would have been better if we had mass testing. I know it’s going to be costly, but if that is what we have to pay to proceed why not?”

When asked by host Francis Abban whether the exercise should cover both lecturers and teachers, he said “I think so. I think it would go a long way to assure members of this community that we are fit. If we are all tested and we all test negative, of course at least when somebody is around you and the person sneezes you don’t go looking at the person. I think we need to do that.”

“But as I said, I don’t want to pre-empt anything. The university management will have to tell us the discussions they’ve had with the government and how things are going to be done,” he added.