This archive report was first published on 29 June 2020.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread in Kenya, Education CS George Magoha has hinted that schools may not reopen until January 2021. According to Magoha, schools will only reopen when Kenya flattens the curve of COVID-19 and fails to report a single case of the virus for 14 consecutive days.
Currently, Kenya is recording more than 100 cases of COVID-19 every day, making it difficult to envision a scenario where the number of cases will decrease in the coming days. This is especially true given that politicians are leading their electorates in flouting COVID-19 regulations.
Magoha's statement comes after President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that schools will reopen in September and directed the Ministry of Education to issue a new school calendar by August. However, the Ministry is facing a tough challenge in trying to reopen schools under the tough social distancing regulations.
Kenyan schools are already overcrowded, with most classrooms holding up to seventy pupils. A case in point is that of Mwiki Primary School in Kasarani, which has 3350 pupils with only 43 classrooms. This makes it impossible to accommodate 15-20 pupils in one classroom, as Magoha had announced last week.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Health is using some schools as isolation centres for COVID-19 patients, which will be very busy in the coming days if the government reopens the economy and allows the movement of people in and out of Nairobi and Mombasa. The number of cases will go up, and it is unclear how the Ministry plans to address this challenge.
With all these obstacles, it is highly likely that learners may be staying at home until January 2021. Having studied for only two months in 2020, all of them may be forced to repeat classes.
