Saudi Arabia: No tests for unvaccinated students

Saudi Arabia: No tests for unvaccinated students

Cairo: Saudi education authorities have ordered banning unvaccinated students from sitting for their examinations, a local newspaper has reported. The Education Ministry has ordered schools to bar unvaccinated students from entering, treating them as absentees and ban them from taking exams, Okaz added, citing a circular from the ministry. Those students should be treated according to the absent mechanism and tested at the start of the third semester in case their submitted excuses are accepted, it said. The new academic year started in Saudi Arabia in late August with a revival of in-person classes for intermediate and secondary school students after a halt of more than a year prompted by the COVID-19 outbreak The Education Ministry has made vaccination against COVID-19 mandatory for accessing all public and private schools, universities and technical training institutions. The kingdom launched mass vaccination against the virus in mid-December 2020. Last January, elementary schools and kindergarten children in the kingdom reopened for in-person classes for the first time in nearly two years amid precautions against COVID-19. The schoolchildren and kindergarteners were allowed back to classes without mandatory vaccination, unlike the older students. However, designating lines have been marked on floors of the schools to regulate