Govt Assesses Schools' Preparedness To Reopen

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education says it is currently assessing the readiness of schools to reopen in line with the Ministry of Health and Child Care and World Health Organisation (WHO) COVID-19 prevention protocols.

According to the Ministry of Education’s Communications and Advocacy director, Taungana Ndoro, some schools are well-prepared to reopen while others are moving towards full preparedness. He said:

We are doing an assessment of the schools’ preparedness for reopening. We are assessing boarding schools especially to check preparedness for opening and adherence to MoHCC and WHO Covid-19 protocols.

… It’s a mixed bag. Other schools are well-prepared, others moving towards full preparedness.

The schools first term was supposed to start on the 4th of January but the Government indefinitely postponed their reopening as the second wave of the coronavirus led to a sharp rise in new infections and COVID-19 related deaths.

Ndoro said Government will continue to avail personal protective equipment (PPEs) to schools in a bid to mitigate against the spread of the virus.

He also said a catch-up learning and teaching strategy will be ready when schools reopen and it would be reflected in the teachers’ plan books.

Catch-up programmes are planned for the time when schools reopen. We will follow an accelerated pattern of teaching and learning and this strategy will be ready when schools open.

Remember the plan book of teachers? Now we plan with catch-up strategies in place. For instance, a topic on energy can be done at once under one subject instead of separately in geography, physics, chemistry or science.

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