Ensure school calendar is seamless in new year

What you need to know:

  • Every effort must be made to restore education programmes and ensure lost time is recovered within relatively shorter a period.
  • Indeed, Education Ministry has determined that school programmes have to run at a break-neck speed until end of next year to recover lost time and restore the normal calendar.

Schools reopened yesterday for the new academic year amid major challenges precipitated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The fact that the schools were able to complete the last academic year and candidates sat national examinations and obtained their results was remarkable.

It is recalled that schools were closed for 10 months last year, except for exam classes that were recalled a few months earlier to resume and clear the syllabus so as to ready themselves for the tests. Learners went through much torment, from whose impact they will take a long time to heal.

This is why every effort must be made to restore education programmes and ensure lost time is recovered within relatively shorter a period. Indeed, Education Ministry has determined that school programmes have to run at a break-neck speed until end of next year to recover lost time and restore the normal calendar.

Schools are also faced with the perennial challenges of congestion, inadequate funding and staff shortage. Enrollment has continued to increase by the year to far outstrip the available spaces.

Implementation of CBC

Covid-19 has worsened the situation since learners are required to keep social distance in the classrooms, dormitories, dining halls, laboratories and elsewhere at school yet these facilities are not adequate.

Other Covid-19 health protocols, such as wearing of face masks, create additional hurdles to poor households as they raise learning costs. To this extent, the government’s pledge to provide face masks to learners from vulnerable backgrounds should be honoured.

Importantly, the government should expedite disbursement of capitation grants to schools to enable them to procure teaching and learning resources.

Notably, the government is implementing the new Competency-Based Curriculum (CBC), which progresses to Grade Five this term. This is a critical moment in the education reforms. The pioneer class enters Grade Six next year and then transits to junior school in 2023. Proper preparation for this progression is paramount.