By Leow Si Wan

REPUBLIC Polytechnic (RP) has ruled out a full closure for now, even as the number of H1N1 cases there edges towards 100.

It will instead stagger break times, and get its staff and students to take their temperature, among other moves.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Health (MOH) announced another eight cases at the polytechnic, bringing the size of Singapore's biggest cluster to 86. RP suspended classes for more than 4,500 of its first-year students and their contacts from other levels last week, when some freshmen tested positive for the flu virus.

This group returns to school today.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 students still attending classes joined an online petition for the school's total shutdown. The number of signatures is rising.

About 7,000 students are in their second and third year.

Principal Yeo Li Pheow, in an e-mail to parents and students on Tuesday, assured them that all was being done to keep RP safe.Explaining why the school would remain open, he noted that the H1N1 virus was here to stay and could be caught anywhere, so shutting it down was not the answer. Appealing to parents and students to stay calm, he said the school's affected areas had been disinfected. Classrooms used by the infected students have also been locked up, and since MOH has said the H1N1 virus cannot survive beyond eight hours outside a host, the bug in these places would have perished, he said.

Chad Lester Chen Xuan, 18 and in his second year in the Diploma in Industrial and Operations Management (DIOM) programme, supports the school's decision. Quarantined until today along with the first-year students because he was a close contact of those taken ill, he said students were using H1N1 as 'a convenient excuse' to miss school. The e-learning he did at home in the past week was ineffective, he said, because the work to be done relied heavily on team effort; the system was also slow.

An RP spokesman said the school would now focus on detecting those who were unwell through regular temperature taking and other checks.

The school will also step up disinfection and cut back on or postpone mass activities.

Starting today, meal breaks for the students will be staggered; those done with classes for the day will be asked to leave the campus immediately to minimise inter-mingling.

Students like Leow Wai Kiat, 19, the co-creator of the petition, still think the school should be closed until next week. The final-year DIOM student said: 'It is true we can get the virus somewhere else, but the school environment makes it worse because interaction takes place in an air-conditioned environment.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.