The Ministry of Education on Tuesday issued guidelines governing the reopening of learning institutions in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Speaking after consultations with stakeholders at the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) Education Cabinet Secretary Prof. George Magoha announced all primary and secondary schools will be reopened in January next year after considering the trend of the spread of COVID-19 infections in the country.
The cohort of students in Class 8 and Form 4 in 2020 will sit for their national examinations next year, dates which will be disclosed by the government.
Although he acknowledged that the government might revise its stance depending if the COVID-19 curve flattens, CS Magoha further announced that all learners in Grades (1-4), (5-7) and Form (1-3) in 2020 will remain in their current classes in 2021 meaning that there will be no Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) in 2021.
“Therefore there shall be no KCPE and KCSE examinations in 2021 because it will be practically be impossible for them (candidates) to cover the syllabus,” said Magoha.
All decisions we have made here ARE NOT CAST IN STONE AND may change depending on dynamic reports from the Ministry of Health, prevailing circumstances and increased knowledge of COVID-19
CS Magoha
The government’s position is that schools will only be reopened when the number of COVID-19 cases reduce consistently for at least 14 days .
“This decisions will apply to all schools including those offering international curriculum,” stressed CS Magoha.
To ensure that learners remain engaged while at home, CS Magoha said that the government will facilitate government learning institutions to allow learners learn virtally.
Inititially, the government had planned to reopen schools for Class 8 and Form Four in September but the position has now been revised after consultations with stakeholders and The Ministry of Health.
The CS gave a number of reasons for the decision including the the paramount need to keep Kenyan learners safe, the best way to utilise available education infrastructure, the school calender, socio- economic considerations and the teacher- student ratio in the wake of the reality that classes might need to be split in order to achieve social distancing.
“There will be two form one classes in the 2021 academic year. The country will experience very severe equity challenges which will be constitutional in nature, when only two basic education classes reopen and transition while all the other children lose the year,” said CS Magoha.
“Although the 2020 examination cohort will have left, the total number of candidature will be 752,000 as compared to approximately 1.2 million in class 8 which would mean that even if we had the intention of using the space left by the form fours we would be having a deficit of 438,000 therefore it shall be impossible to achieve social distancing, we shall be unable to have physical classrooms for this huge number,” added the CS.
In short, the 2020 academic year has been lost due to COVID-19.
Universities and Colleges
A different approach will be used to consider reopening of universties of colleges.
CS Magoha stated that his Ministry will allow universities and colleges to reopen on a case by case basis depending on compliance with health guidelines communicated by the government.
“Universities, most of them are doing so (complying) and should continue with virtual learning and graduations for students who have successfully completed their programs and their standings approved by University Senates. Universities must consider phased reopening,” further stated Magoha
“We are going to inspect we know they have challenges in their boarding sectors because I was an administrator for 10 years. All institutions allowed to reopen must comply with regulations or risk re-closure,” added Magoha.
TVETs
Teacher training colleges and TVET institutions will be allowed to reopen from September subject to COVID-19 adherence measures.
“If the institutions have good managers, they can regulate the numbers in their presence, according to the courses that people are doing,” said CS Magoha.
schools must be closed since the government misled us.Has it not closed schools the moment the disease broke out,we would have survived: now that it allowed us to go back home and its now forcing us to return back to school,we’ll not.The chances of getting the disease have increased for the present moment
when will class 8 and form 3 do their exam?