Govt permits visits, phones for students

The government has lifted the Covid-induced school visitation ban, and separately permitted students to use smart phones for class work.

The authorisation of phones at schools is a significant reversal of a long-standing government policy that hitherto rendered it possible for schools to expel students found in possession of the gadgets.

However, some of the international schools in the country allow their students to use mobile phone handsets in line with promoting Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) learning and knowledge.  

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Mr John Chrysostom Muyingo, the State minister for Higher Education, told this newspaper yesterday that schools can go ahead and allow students to use mobile phones for academic research as the government drafts an enabling policy.

The proclamation, and the accompanying proposal to implement it in a manner of placing the cart before the horse, has some education stakeholders worried that students could potentially abuse smart phones use.   

Concerns
Mr Martin Okiria, the national chairperson of Secondary Schools Head Teachers’ Association, said the policy change requires discussion and concurrence by school leaders so that they are not taken by surprise, or implementation does not boomerang.

“We should all meet as stakeholders and come out with a mechanism of how to implement this so that it is not abused by students for pornography and entertainment. If this is not done, it will cause destruction in schools,” he said.

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His reservation follows back-to-back strikes, mainly in West Nile schools, by students over, among others, disagreements about watching premier league games, lack of beef on the menu and exclusion of school teams from participating in intra-district football tournaments.   

The strikes have left schools in ruins, suspended students with an uncertain future, and school administrators on edge that anything could potentially ignite disturbances in a way that permitting mobile phones usage adds a new problematic layer of control and likely collision between school administrations and students.

Accessing Internet-enabled phones mean students will have exposure to wide-array of online information, including educational material and inappropriate or criminal content.

It could also enable students with a touch on the screen to organise within, or between, schools either a strike or for other outlawed activity.

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In yesterday’s interview with this publication, minister Muyingo, without addressing the likely downsides of the policy, said: “The ministry [of Education] has observed that one of the tools in the future is embedding IT in all learning that will take place at schools and home. Smart phones will be among the many gadgets [that] learners will use. As the government, we are soon going to that era.”

His remarks followed a number of schools in Kampala, permitting their students to carry smart phones to schools to enable them conduct research as required by the new lower secondary curriculum.

Mr Muyingo, however, said the use of phones at schools by students will require regulation to be elaborated under a forthcoming ICT policy.

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In response to our inquiries about the likely ramification of the phone policy reversal, Uganda National Teachers Union (Unatu) secretary general, Mr Filbert Baguma, said learners used the gadgets for learning during the nearly two-year Covid-induced closure of schools and allowing them to do now is in order.

“What we need is to regulate the use of phones. Where we are going, we cannot do without phones; so, this [move] has been long overdue,” Mr Baguma said.

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Other stakeholders raised concerns, including about the possibility of the mobile phones being used to cheat in examinations.
In another development, minister Muyingo said the government had lifted the ban on school visitation.

“Parents can now visit their learners at schools. We have asked schools to come up with their respective schedules for visitation days,” he said.

He said the visits can start as early as Sunday this week.

“The decision follows a reduction in the number of Covid-19 cases reported by the Ministry of Health; so, it is now safe for parents to visit their children,” he added.

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The positivity rate for Covid-19 in the county has dropped from the 21 percent as of January 2022 when schools reopened under multiple restrictions, to under one percent today. 

Most of Uganda’s hospitals are empty of Covid patients and the country registers no death of a coronavirus patient on some days.

Ministry of Health’s statistics released yesterday showed only 13 new confirmed Covid-19 cases, with overall 11 admissions.  

Prior to reopening of schools on January 10, Education ministry permanent secretary Ketty Lamaro issued tough guidelines, restricting entry of outsiders into school premises.

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This meant schools were restricted from conducting visitation days, personal career days and class days as one of the ways to prevent the spread of the pandemic.

The government also banned sports activities in school and assemblies that bring together a number of students.

However, the Ministry of Education early this month lifted the ban on sports activities, but maintained a freeze on visitation days until yesterday’s proclamation by minister Muyingo.

Parents have been nervous about the wellbeing of their children in schools after a wave of dry cough and flu, accompanied with, in some cases, high fever and vomiting, in children swept through the country, leaving hospitals out of space for new admissions.

Officials have been scrambling for answers after some of the children tested negative for Covid-19, yet the cough remains unresponsive to common treatments.

Dr Charles Olaro, the director of clinical services at the Health ministry, said: “Our teams from Uganda Virus Research Institute are investigating the cause of the increase [in cough and flu infections in children]”.

“As part of our surveillance [report], most of these children, who are presenting with these symptoms, are not testing positive for Covid-19 and now we want to understand the type of influenza virus which is circulating,” he added.

Mr Muyingo asked parents to return children they recalled from schools over the unexplained infections.