Hello

Your subscription is almost coming to an end. Don’t miss out on the great content on Nation.Africa

Ready to continue your informative journey with us?

Hello

Your premium access has ended, but the best of Nation.Africa is still within reach. Renew now to unlock exclusive stories and in-depth features.

Reclaim your full access. Click below to renew.

Balance between right to education and safety of child

Sosiani Primary School

Andrew Chepkonga, a teacher at Sosiani Primary School in Eldoret town, Uasin Gishu County talks to Grade Four pupils on the Covid-19 protocols on October 12, 2020.

Photo credit: Jared Nyataya | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • The government developed guidelines on Health and Safety Protocols for Reopening of Basic Education Institutions amid Covid-19 Pandemic.
  • The protocols ensured that schools adopted appropriate hygiene practices, such as hand washing, sanitising, and social distancing.

The phased reopening of basic education learning institutions that started in October with Grade Four, Class Eight and Form Four was a classic case of the government delicately balancing between the right of learners to education and their safety.

To protect and advance the right to education for every learner, the government chose to walk the narrow road of ensuring the learners were safe from Covid-19 on one hand, and pursuing their education on the other.

To ensure the learners were protected, the government developed guidelines on Health and Safety Protocols for Reopening of Basic Education Institutions amid Covid-19 Pandemic.

The protocols ensured that schools adopted appropriate hygiene practices, such as hand washing, sanitising, and social distancing. Every person within the school compound is now supposed to wear a face mask.

This measures are expected to be scaled up when the rest of the learners resume in January. As Grades I, 2 and 3 report to school, teachers will ensure they all wear face marks, wash their hands regularly and practice social distancing. Given their age, implementation of these guidelines will be a tough call.

The Ministry expects to on-board the learners quickly to ensure they adjust well to the new normal.

So the kind of safety and health that parents have established at home will largely determine the degree of adherence to the Health and Safety Protocols.

If wearing face masks and practising hygiene is the norm at home, then it will be relatively easier for learners to abide by the guidelines.

Appropriate messages

So far, learners of upper primary and secondary schools appreciate the health protocols as guided by their teachers. There are numerous illustrations, online simulations and even local experts who can clearly develop appropriate messages that explain the rationale behind the protocols.

The school needs to teach these protocols as a scientific approach to flattening the curve. If the learners understand the rationale for face masks and sanitising, they will follow the guidelines and the entire society will learn from them. The place for developing this understanding is the school.

Clearly, next month’s full resumption of learning won’t be business as usual for the children and the teachers.

The success of the new school calendar will depend on stringent adherence to health protocols while at the same time rekindling the learning flame. In effect, the reopening will be a transition from an eight-month light home learning environment to a packed academic ecosystem at school.

Since prolonged school closures slow down a learner’s achievement, many will have forgotten part of the knowledge they had acquired. While the virtual learning experience may have increased retention of knowledge, the structure and discipline characteristic of face-to-face learning at school is more effective.

Yet, turning up at school does not automatically lead to a restart of learning. By good fortune, our teachers have been prepared to provide the kind of professional and pedagogic support to the learners to ease reintegration of children to back to path of learning.

Regardless of whatever may have happened to our learners, they will get quality education in a safe school environment come January. They deserve our support.