This archive report was first published on 14 July 2020.
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread, Kenya's Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha has made a crucial decision to suspend the 2020 academic calendar for the 16 million pre-primary, primary, and secondary school learners until January. This move aims to ensure the safety of learners, teachers, and other school workers amid the rising numbers of Covid-19 cases in the country.
With six months to prepare, the authorities have a significant task ahead of them. The Education and Health ministries must conduct assessments and develop reports on the hygiene status in schools and the gaps to be filled beforehand. This includes ensuring accurate records of numbers of learners, teachers, and non-teaching staff are captured for fair and adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) and addressing teacher shortfall and erecting extra buildings.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the age group of 45 years and above accounts for about 90 per cent of Covid-19 deaths. Furthermore, teachers with underlying medical conditions are most at risk of the virus. To mitigate this, think tanks and medical experts have suggested offering vulnerable teachers early retirement, reassigning them to virtual jobs, or letting them remotely teach their students in the school building supervised by another staff member.
County Education Boards should work with the Health and Transport ministries to develop transport protocols for learners and teachers to ensure their safety at all times. Additionally, schools in rural settings and informal urban settlements need a face-lift due to vandalism. To address the shortage of medical personnel, schools should be clustered in sub-counties for receiving services from health professionals in a convenient and affordable manner, and every school should have a Covid-19 response committee.
Children will need extra support to catch up on their learning; hence, schools, under the supervision of the Directorate of Quality Assurance and Standards, should make plans for catch-up lessons. This might include refresher or remedial courses, after-school programs, or supplemental assignments done at home. Many schools may not open full-time or for all grades; so, they could implement 'blended learning' models — a mix of classroom instruction and remote education.
The national government should, therefore, compute a specific budget for Covid-19 containment in schools. This will ensure that schools are equipped to provide a safe learning environment for all students and staff.
