Africa-Press – Uganda. To reopen schools for the rest of the learners or not is the sticky question in Uganda, and understandably so, given the times.
When the government closed schools on March 20 last year as one of the measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, it was beyond imagination that the virus would continue to wreak havoc in the country and worldwide to the magnitude we are witnessing today.
At the time of closing schools, universities and other tertiary institutions in the country, there was zero Covid-19 case or death. The shutdown of schools affected 15 million learners countrywide.
Today, after almost 11 months of closure of learning institutions, except for candidate classes and finalists, there are 39,314 Covid-19 cases and 318 deaths as at January 27.
Here lies the dilemma. How do you reopen learning institutions at a time when Covid-19 cases are increasingly claiming more lives and affecting more people in and beyond the country?
Question is, how much longer will schools remain closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic? Besides, after nearly a year of staying home, where do our children start from, assuming government decides to reopen schools today?
However, the argument now is that it is possible to reopen schools and allow children to return to school against the backdrop that the government, upon guidance by the Ministry of Health, has put in place a raft of measures, including standard operating procedures (SOPs), to curb the spread of the pandemic.
These include washing hands using soap or sanitisers, wearing facemasks, and observing social distancing. Besides, there is also better capacity to carry out Covid-19 tests today than in the past.
So the application of SOPs on top of carrying out regular Covid tests, give a window of hope that reopening schools today may not be all that risky.
But this introduces new challenges. In observance of SOPs, how many schools have the capacity to provide water, sanitisers, and masks to students, teachers, and workers sustainably? Who will bear the cost of testing Covid-19 in school? Who will take responsibility when a learner, teacher or worker at school tests positive for Covid-19?
Therefore, if the government through the Ministry of Education and Sports resolves reopen schools, it should provide clear answers to these and more questions.
Our suggestion is that the government should provide or subsidise the cost of water, soap, sanitisers, and masks to both public and private schools. Truth is, both schools and parents have lost earning during this pandemic period.
