The health authorities are urging English language schools to test their students for COVID-19 every two weeks throughout their stay in Malta as 22 of them reopen their doors for those who are fully vaccinated.
In updated guidelines for the sector, which was shuttered in July after hundreds of students contracted the virus, the health authorities are recommending that “all English Language Teaching (ELT) schools students are offered testing for COVID-19 by rapid antigen test”.
The tests should be carried out between days five and 10 after the students’ arrival and “every two weeks thereafter for the whole duration of their stay in Malta”.
“The public health authorities will consider facilitating this process if properly and centrally organised by the ELT council or FELTOM,” the guidelines say.
Times of Malta has reached out to the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta (FELTOM) for a comment.
Students are offered testing for COVID-19 by rapid antigen test
In July, Times of Malta reported that the health authorities can give language schools permission to reopen if the exemption from the closure rules is “deemed necessary or essential” by the Superintendent of Public Health.
The schools can only open for those students who were already in Malta by July 26 and who are in possession of a valid vaccine certificate. According to the health authorities, 22 schools are currently open “to fully vaccinated students only”. There are around 40 language schools in Malta.
The government had ordered the closure of language schools after hundreds of unvaccinated teenagers in Malta to study English tested positive for COVID-19. Since then, a portion of them, including those infected with the virus, have been repatriated.
According to the health authorities, some 700 students had contracted the virus while in Malta studying English.
The closure had not gone down well with the schools. FELTOM had said the decision to force them to shut their doors was “unwarranted” and “disproportionate”. It had also said it was taken without consultation with stakeholders.