The Ghana Education Service (GES) has said it is best for Senior High School (SHS) students to stay in school despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, believes it will be disastrous to allow students to go home.

He explained that, with some schools recording infections, the virus could spread further if students are allowed to integrate into the larger community.

Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said this during Tuesday’s press conference in Accra to address Ghana’s COVID-19 case management.

“We believe that the best option is to keep them [students] in school because if we decide to let them go into the bigger society, then we rather have to close down the entire country because if you have a thousand students going into different homes and they are infected, we are not sure of what is going to happen to the larger community,” he said.

"We are talking about 550,000 students; that is, the Gold Track students plus SHS final-year students, so if we decide to let them all go, I think we will be causing a big disaster to ourselves.”

There have been calls from the National Council of Parent-Teacher Associations of Ghana for government to close down schools and allow students return home.

This comes after some secondary schools have recorded COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, causing parents to panic.

The Accra Technical University was the first to record a case, after a National Service Personnel contracted the virus.

The Ghana Education Service has also disclosed 55 students and staff at the Accra Girls SHS have tested positive for COVID-19.

Also, over five secondary schools in the Western region have also had their students infected.

Meanwhile, the GES has assured that it is working on a strategic plan to ensure that students are able to go back home after completing their WASSCE.