• The assessment of principals is that if schools open before June it is possible to recover the time lost.
• The headteachers have recommended that the government foregoes the second term midterm and reduce the August holiday for time recovery.
Headteachers are rooting for a partial reopening of schools in the second term to avert a crisis in the education system.
The proposal is pegged on the government’s ability to keep the virus spread in check in the next three months.
Schools were scheduled to reopen from May 4 – a fortnight away.
The principals argue that if normalcy returns and schools are opened before June, then it is possible to recover the time lost.
Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha on Sunday ruled out the possibility of postponing the national examinations just yet.
As of now, schools have lost three weeks, with educators predicting the pandemic could well eat into part of the second term.
On Sunday, Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association chairman Indimuli Kahi said the time lost is yet to make an impact on the school calendar and "is easily recoverable".
Timelines
Kahi said the principals' assessment is that it will not be until the end of June that the school calendar will be overstretched.
“By the end of June, schools will have lost 10 weeks. This is longer than the third term of the school calendar [nine weeks],” he said.
“If we get into July with schools shut then the calendar as it is will be fatigued. With less than 28 weeks, preparing students for examinations will exert pressure on the entire system,” Kahi told the Star yesterday.
Partial reopening
The association has recommended that the government foregoes the second term midterm and reduce the August holiday to recover the time lost.
The principals argue that if the spread is put to ‘bearable’ levels, then KCPE candidates, Form 3 and 4 students could go to school under stringent measures.
For boarding schools, the association fronts quarantine and stringent measures on hygiene and social distancing.
For day schools, Kahi has suggested high standards of hygiene, social distancing and temperature checks to ensure teaching and learning continues.
“Schools should provide water for learners to wash their hands and with half the institution then social distancing will be maintained in learning facilities and dormitories,” Kahi said.
It is a suggestion that counters that of the Kenya Union of Post Primary School Teachers, which in March suggested a complete restructuring of the school calendar.
In a letter to the Education CS last week, the union called for the reorganisation of the school calendar as soon as the virus is contained.
“The minister should discuss the idea of rethinking a new school calendar of events by reorganising term dates… That means the KCPE and KCSE exams cannot go on as proposed,” Kuppet secretary-general Akello Misori told the Star in a recent interview.
Edited by A.N