Seychelles Maritime Academy ‘Our students and staff come first’ |08 May 2020

Pressure cleaning in progress at the SMA (Photo: Thomas Meriton)

With the reopening of post-secondary schools only days away, the Seychelles Maritime Academy is making sure that its staff and students come back to a safe and clean environment.

With the help of a private contractor, the school has started pressure cleaning its campus since Monday.

The administrative staff and a few lecturers also met with the director of the school, Captain Aruna Kotelawala and the deputy director, Captain Wilton Ernesta, to discuss their recovery action plan for the re-opening of the professional centre.

“In the meeting we have discussed how we will be structuring our classes and what lecturers need to do in order to incorporate social distancing as well as giving their lectures,” said Capt. Ernesta.

One major change that will occur on Monday is that classes have been divided into two groups each with 15 students attending a lecture at a time. Signs have also been placed in classrooms to show students the distance they must keep from each other.

“Sanitisers will be distributed as well as hand washing station which will be placed around campus,” said the deputy director.

He noted that all students have been assigned a class and lecturers will move from class to class instead of students going to a designated class for each lesson.

“Our time table has also been fixed so that we can get as much learning time as we can. We have also shortened coffee and lunch breaks,” added the captain.

Gemma Souris, the administration manager for the school, said that starting Monday there will be a new procedure for cleaning.

“The cleaners will clean every surface like doorknobs and rails three times a day, morning, after break and after lunch,” said Ms Souris.

Jimmy Port-Louis, a lecturer at SMA, noted that these changes will not be a challenge for him as it will provide a better teaching environment as the classes will be smaller providing more one on one time with students.

He also noted that even though the school is putting in place a lot of precautionary measures, it’s up to the students as well to be more responsible.

Christophe Zialor