Job Discussion Forums

[gajackson1]

Yayasan had this last week 'off,' like other teachers, although were still required by the MoE to come in & work - so just extra time for lesson planning, paper organization, etc.

However - as of right now, though it could change within the next few hours - we are slated to reopen the school & resume classes tomorrow morn.

We will be running a sort of 'gauntlet' at the front gate, temp-checking kids, and either stickering them & putting them through onto the campus, or rejecting and putting them in a holding area until they can be picked back up by their parents/drivers.

We are set to keep doing this 'until further notice,' and I am guessing it will be a mess tomorrow morn, but we will adjust/adapt over the course of the week.

I've gone over all the lit, advisories, precautions, etc. pretty thoroughly, and honestly think that without something drastic along the lines of a country-wide quarantine, things are going to get a lot worse before they get better - too many people relying on the masks, hand sanitizer, luck, 'home remedies,' etc. Too many people faking illness to shirk work/school, and too many others who WILL be sick/contagious, but try to hide it - and contaminate others in the process.

The conditions are just too close-quarters for so much of the immigrant labour workforce. If you think about the factories, staff houses, public transpo, the crowds at the churches on Sundays. Add in all the public celebrations slated for this month . . . just not good.

We are literally caught here - we go ahead with school, we risk pandemic. We keep it canceled & fall further & further behind in the academic calendar.

What are you all doing at your schools? What preps or plans???

Wishing you the best in the coming weeks,

Glen

[jsteventon]

Hi Glen,

Hope you are not overconcerned about this . We in Brunei, as all over the world, need to just learn to live with it and take sensible precautions, but not go 'over the top...' Remember for the vast majority of people this flu is mild and not serious at all. The child who recently died here so sadly did, however, suffer from extremely serious other conditions....and if you read about fatalities worldwide, it does transpire that the vast majority had serious health problems already...

As other countries have come to realise, we cannot eradicate this, but just need to be aware of handwashing and staying off work when sick etc.

By the way, the public celebrations you mentioned were cancelled yesterday....

JS

[gajackson1]

about 60% attendance yesterday; similar numbers so far today.

It isn't that I am so worried about Yayasan, or the Bruneians per se; it is more the conditions for the migrant laborers that concern me. I deal pretty well with the realities of life; it just seems to be a difficult set of circumstances & coming at a baddish time for schools & others to try to deal with it.

In time, it will be fine - I am just hedging a bet on it getting a wee bit worse before better.

Warm regards,

Glen