Prioritise Ant-covid-19 Measures

The dust raised by the so called Covid-19 is yet to settle as school-going age children and their parents and guardians continue to gnash their teeth over the nefarious consequences of the pandemic. Many are grappling on how best to repair the damage caused by the pandemic on their children’s educational career. The obligatory suspension of schools alone was a bitter pill to swallow but the education sector had no other option than to swallow it.  Covid-19 remains one of the century’s educational challenges, one that took government and its administration to task. Whether or not the results so far registered following all the measures taken are satisfactory enough might not be the issue for the moment. The real concern for now is that the children are back to school and the pandemic is yet to be over.

In a pre-school-resumption joint press conference last week, spearheaded by the Minister of Communication, Rene Emmanuel Sadi, the three Ministers in charge of education, Basic, Secondary and Higher education; ignited the feeling of assurance in parents and children. They stated inter alia that all it takes to make school reopening hitch-free within the context of Covid-19 has been put in place. In effect, all the measures taken so to say have been guided by the exigencies of the pandemic. Some of them include the full incorporation of e-learning into the academic programmes at all levels, the plan to set up distance learning centres in the ten regional headquarters and the limiting of the number of pupils and students to 50 or less per class. The obligatory wearing of protective face masks, possession of hand sanitizers and washing of hands in schools is a thing that must be made to be fully integrated in school life. That, from every indication, is what government seems to be gearing at.