(KDRTV) – Schools will only reopen when Kenya flattens the curve of COVID-19 and fails to report a single case of dreaded virus for 14 consecutive days, Education CS George Magoha said.
Currently, Kenya is recording more than 100 cases of COVID-19 every day. There is no way these number will go down in the coming days especially with politicians leading their electorates in flouting COVID-19 regulations.
#SchoolsReopening
~ @EduMinKenya CS Magoha pic.twitter.com/MxxTgeldU8— Radio Citizen (@RadioCitizenFM) June 29, 2020
Early this month, President Uhuru Kenyatta announced that schools will reopen in September and directed the Ministry of Education to issue a new school calendar by August.
However, the Ministry is facing a tough challenge in trying to reopen schools under the tough social distancing regulations. Kenyan schools are already overcrowded with most classrooms holding up to seventy pupils. A case in point is that of Mwiki Primary School in Kasarani which has 3350 pupils with only 43 classrooms.
There is no way one classroom can accommodate 15-20 pupils as Magoha had announced last week.
EDUCATION CS Magoha says each classroom to have 15 to 20 learners when schools reopen; State to give at least two face masks to every pupil. pic.twitter.com/pqhGZt6I3e
— Nation Breaking News (@NationBreaking) June 24, 2020
The other challenge that Magoha is facing is the fact that The Ministry of Health is using some schools as isolation centres for COVID-19 patients. These schools will be very busy in the coming days if the government reopens the economy and allows the movement of people in and out of Nairobi and Mombasa. The number of cases will go up. How does the Ministry plan to address this?
With all these obstacles, it is highly likely that learners may be staying at home until January 2021. Having studied for only two months in 2020, all of them may be forced to repeat classes.
