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The Education Ministry, in an advisory issued last Friday, urged kindergartens to continue conducting temperature-taking exercises on a daily basis. -- PHOTO: CHEW SENG KIM
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GLOVES came on and thermometers were taken out at Ascension Kindergarten in Potong Pasir when classes resumed on Monday after the one-week March school holidays.
Pupils of the kindergarten stood in line outside the school hall after they alighted from school buses to have their temperatures taken by teachers wearing rubber gloves.
The kindergarten took this precautionary measure, in the wake of the Hong Kong flu outbreak which has killed four youngsters so far and prompted the authorities in the territory last week to close schools for two weeks.
The Education Ministry, in an advisory issued last Friday, urged kindergartens to continue conducting temperature-taking exercises on a daily basis. They were also asked to keep a closer eye on their students and isolate those who display flu-like symptoms.
Heeding MOE's calls, PAP Community Foundation (PCF) Zhenghua kindergarten started daily temperature checks on its students on Monday.
Said the branch administrator Ms Daisy Chee: 'Such checks are essential especially for kindergartens like ours because these young children are more susceptible to falling sick and they may not know it themselves unless someone performs a check on them.'
NTUC Childcare - Singapore's largest childcare operator - is also conducting temperature checks in all its centres.
A random check of 22 primary and secondary schools and 2 kindergartens by The Straits Times on Monday showed that attendance had not dipped despite the Hong Kong flu scare.
Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.
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