Andrew Kathindi
Ministry of Education expects over 49,000 learners to return to schools around the country on Wednesday when they re-open under the country’s Stage 3 lifting of the State of Emergency.
This comes as the ministry has so far spent N$58 million in sanitation and cleaning costs, in preparation for the day the classroom doors open again.
The initial group of returning students comprise of grades 11 and 12. They will attend face-to-face classes, with students split into smaller groups, making use of the empty classrooms. This will ensure ample social spacing for each lesson.
“If there are 40 learners per class, and you divide them into two groups. Certain days of the week, only one group comes in and other days the other group comes. That could be one way. Then you could also teach for longer hours, say the whole week’s content for only two and a half days. The other two and a half days can be for the other group. In some instances, you can also think of taking one group in the morning and in the afternoon, another group,” Deputy Executive Director for Formal Education in the ministry, Edda Bohn said.
Quizzed if the above mentioned model will apply to all schools, she said, “We have not dictated to the schools how to manage the situation. It depends on the situation on the ground.”
She was, however, aware of the phased model challenges when more grades start to attend face-to-face classes.
“We have requested that the various schools around the country come up with models to uphold social distancing measures when the rest of the nearly 400,000 leaners in the country join those starting school tomorrow,” Bohn said.
Education ministry executive director, Sanet Steenkamp said senior secondary schools may be faced with a challenge when it comes to the phasing-in of the grade 10s at particular schools.
“The ministry does not foresee major challenges at the beginning as the timetable will be adjusted to focus only six promotional subjects and life skills,” she said.
Steenkamp said although some parents remain skeptical of returning their kids to school amid certain private schools requiring indemnity forms to be signed, the ministry was continuing with its plans to roll out e-learning although the platform might put additional strain on teachers.
“E-learning is something the ministry envisages being formalized and continuing beyond this period. We must remember that if the child does not come to school, you have additional strain on the teacher to prepare additional material for that learner. That is an implication if children do not return to school. So, what that would mean is that that informal learning will have to continue at home, but the parent will have to take full ownership to make sure that the children are meeting the targets and specific learning outcomes that we want to see,” the Executive Director said.
She added,” It is the ministry’s view that a social environment is necessary for a child to learn but if there are parents who are insisting on possibly exploring informal learning at home it would be their prerogative. However, the constitution makes it clear that government needs to provide education and do so compulsively up to the age of 16.”
On the ministry’s budgetary allocation, she said the government department was satisfied with its N$14.2 billion allocation, of which N$600 million was dedicated to provisions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 when schools re-open.
