SCHOOL REOPENING: Inside Janet Museveni’s Education Ministry Plan for Primary Schools

Education minister Janet Museveni is expected to unveil a school reopening plan after months of disruption by the Covid19 second wave.

One of the proposed guidelines is that all primary schools should not run boarding sections.

Sources say officials at the Ministry of Education and Sports have recommended the banning of boarding sections for primary schools ahead of reopening of education institutions.

While President Yoweri Kaguta Tibuhaburwa Museveni has insisted on vaccination of all teaching and non-teaching staff as well as learners as a precondition for reopening, there are no approved vaccines for people aged below 12.

As a way of safely reopening primary schools, where most learners are below the age of 12, some influential officials at the education ministry have advised that the boarding sections be banned.

The officials argue that most learners below the age of 12 may not be able to observe standard operating procedures (SOPs).

When schools reopened after the first lockdown in 2020, President Museveni guided that education institutions could operate as either boarding or day, but not both to avoid mixing of learners with communities.

Now, the ministry is mulling over a proposal to have primary schools operate as day schools, sources at the ministry say.

SHIFTS

The other proposal is that learners (pupils) should study in shifts.

Sources say officials at the ministry are considering two options for learning in shifts.

One is where some pupils will learn in the morning and others in the afternoon as a way of ensuring that classes are not crowded.

The other option will see the ministry adopt what experts have called the alternate-day model. Under this, there will be two shifts: one attending school from Monday through Wednesday, the other learning from Thursday to Saturday.

The shifts and ban on boarding sections are meant to cure instances, among which is the possibility that schools could decline to report Covid19 cases as was the case in the first phased reopening.