It has been six months of no schooling, no learning—thanks to legitimate fears about the health and safety of learners and teachers.
Kenya like most other countries created a platform where learners were able to access the digital learning, in our case through various digital and mass media channels by the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
Notwithstanding these timely interventions, learners have undoubtedly lost the spirit to go to school and learn as it was before.
This psychological change has a great mental health impact on learners. The brains of learners have abruptly shifted out of class and exams to other things in their surroundings.
Consequently, the last thing that teachers should do is to subject learners to an exam in the first week of reopening in January.
This exam is given out with a twisted assumption that learners were fully studying syllabus-based contents at home during school closure.
The Ministry of Education should advise school administrators against subjecting students to any examinations whatever. Prolonged school closure has caused learning losses among students. The bright and the average student have suffered varying learning losses and anxieties. Some of them have probably suffered from Covid-19. Others have seen their parents, siblings, relatives and friends either suffering from Covid-19 or succumbing to it.
What teachers should do instead is to wean the students back to learning. Subjecting the students to any test, however well-intended, is not the best way of rewiring the students back on the trajectory of learning.
We must place learners at the centre of learning and build a comprehensive approach to the psychological change around learners before we can subject them to any form of testing.
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