Worrying situation four weeks to school reopening date

Those like the National Council of Churches of Kenya that are seeking a deferment of the schools reopening date now scheduled for January 4, 2021, must wake up to the reality that in this Covid-19 induced new normal, abnormal measures are okay to consider.

The reopening timetable released by the Ministry of Education is itself abnormal because it is trying to adjust the school calendar to provide space to cram in the lost 2020 to hopefully resume some normality in 2023.

But even before then, we should probably be asking what is so special about school calendars running from January to December, yet there are others that run perfectly from September to May/June. But I digress.

Schools need to reopen in January, just as worship places had to open in July and restrictions on movement and gatherings were eased.
There are explicit health protocols in place to control the spread of the virus. Follow these and the frightening spectre of mass deaths from Covid-19-related causes will soften.

Special challenge

Of course, schools present a special challenge – with some handling close to 1,000 learners in boarding or day-schooling. Classrooms are generally congested and providing running water and/or sanitisers, masks and physical space for distancing will be a challenge for many.

But that is the practical challenge that needs to be confronted, as delaying the reopening is running away from the problem.

The announcement by President Uhuru Kenyatta two months ago that the government had earmarked Sh1.9 billion to provide additional desks to primary schools was welcome and institutions across the country have started receiving the desks, although, unsurprisingly, there were reports earlier in the week that some suppliers of these desks have not been paid.

Can the ministry confirm how many desks have been procured and how they have been distributed?

To his credit, Cabinet Secretary George Magoha and his team published in July elaborate guidelines to manage the return-to-school challenge.

The protocols listed what needed to have been done before schools reopened and after they opened. It detailed how situations in classrooms were to be managed, in dining places, in dormitories,  and so on. It is a 27-page document that those running schools will be well advised to read.

It is clearly too detailed and not everything listed there will apply to all schools. But it provides a framework and the basis for evaluating the readiness of schools.

So, since it is barely four weeks to the reopening of schools, teams made up of representatives of the relevant ministries should be hard at work at the ward level, visiting all schools with a check-list of the basic elements that should be in place by January 4.

The mobilisation should be more elaborate. Four years ago during the well-publicised campaign to eradicate cheating from the exam system, we saw all Cabinet secretaries go to supervise the opening of containers that had the exam papers in various parts of the country.

Even more currently, the State machinery is energetically being mobilised to gather the signatures needed as the first step towards the referendum being forced on the country.

For me, the worry is not so much that schools are going to open even as the Covid-19 cases appear to be on the rise. It is that with so little time left to the inevitable reopening, there does not seem to be much public engagement with how well prepared the schools are or ought to be to guarantee the safety of learners.

Re-usable masks

We recently heard Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani just stop short of saying that Kenya is broke.

But though broke we may be, we see that Sh6.3 billion has been found to provide some insurance to civil servants and health workers, partly because the latter can force their case by threatening to go on strike.

We also know Mr Yatani will find the cash required to hold the referendum in the coming months and that counties are still spending on non-essentials.

All schools must at least be assured that learners will have running water or sanitisers available and that they will also get re-usable masks that can be produced quite cheaply.

Let the government for once demonstrate that even in the grip of political schizophrenia, it can be lucid enough to prioritise a truly legitimate cause.

[email protected], @tmshindi