Reopen schools for all primary and secondary classes

Senior 4 students attend class at St Noa Mawaggali S.S.S in Njeru, Buikwe District, on October 14, during the Covid-19 era. PHOTO/ DENIS EDEMA

What you need to know:

  • Mr Mesharch W Katusiimeh says: Even those doing remote learning are not doing any better. 

Coronavirus vaccines are in development across the world, and hopes are high to bring one on market in record time, to ease the global crisis due to Covid-19. 

However, even after a vaccine is approved, scientists say it faces potential roadblocks when it comes to scaling up production and distribution, which also includes deciding which populations, should get first and at what cost.

The implication of all this is that we (Ugandans) might perhaps get the vaccine very late.

The Covid-19 directives and guidance by President Yoweri Museveni has no doubt been very helpful in containing the deadly disease. The President also directed that all schools be opened for candidate classes and so far so good.

Since October 15 when finalists reported to school and higher institutions of learning countrywide, no crisis has happened as pessimists wanted us to believe.

Each day that passes, it becomes increasingly clear that school closures have had impacted child, health, education and development, family income and the economy.

That is why many leaders around the world are continuing to grapple with the complex decision of when and how to reopen schools for in-person learning following closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The reopening of schools is currently in many different phases around the world, but each country has unique experiences. Probably because of the high cost of testing, no country is known to be carrying out widespread school-based testing for Covid-19.

Experience in many countries show no measurable impact of school reopening on increasing community transmission rates, while within primary school settings, there has been limited transmission among children.

Emerging evidence drawn from Uganda since the opening of schools to finalists also suggest that the institutions have not been associated with significant increases in community transmission. 

Overall, global evidence suggests that young children have lower susceptibility to infection compared to adults, with susceptibility generally increasing with age, and that children are less likely to be main transmitters of infection.

However, where the virus local transmission rate is more prevalent or where safety measures cannot be universally implemented like the case of Uganda - because of crowded classrooms, lack of water, sanitation and health (WASH) facilities, crowded school transportation services, or insufficient and, therefore, shared teaching and learning materials and a prevalence of households that include elderly people as well as children – decision-making becomes more complex. 

In spite of the risks of opening schools as already observed above, it is very clear that continued closure of schools does more harm than good. The longer the children are out of school, the less likely they are to return. 

When classes were reopened for finalists, some students were not been able to return. We have already seen girls being out of school have also increased the risk of teenage pregnancy, sexual exploitation, child marriage, violence and other threats on top of causing stress and anxiety due to loss of peer interaction and disrupted routines. 

Even those doing remote learning are not doing any better. As parents of children affected by school closures will know, remote learning has not been a good substitute for in-person instruction.

A recent survey of over 1,000 parents of German schoolchildren, found that the time students spent on school and homework was halved from 7.4 to only 3.6 hours per day, while the time spent watching TV, playing computer games, or using mobile phones increased to 5.2 hours per day.

More than a third of students only studied two hours or less. Contrary to belief that educated parents were good at providing a supportive home-learning environment, the drop in learning time was as steep for their children as for those of less-educated parents. 

Author, Mr Mesharch W Katusiimeh. PHOTO/COURTESY

Mr Mesharch W Katusiimeh is an associate professor - Department of Governance, Kabale University. 
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