Educationists:"Uganda should develop clear plans to deal with Covid-19 crisis"

The director basic and secondary education in the ministry of Education and Sports, Mulindwa Ismail, has said that the ministry will come up with clear arrangements for the future of education in the country to avoid a paralysis as we have seen during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He made the remarks during a national dialogue aimed at mitigating the negative impact of Covid-19 that was aired live on NBS TV on July 15.

Mulindwa expressed fear whether some of students that were sent home due to Covid-19 will be able to return to school because some had gotten pregnant and others getting into other businesses.

He however said that the Ministry of Education was quick to come up with a plan to ensure students continue learning after the closure of schools.

"We had to think of quick interventions because there was no time. We have reviewed the framework. We now have a new framework which we are going to use to distribute the reading materials. We hope things will be better this time,"he said.

He reassured the country there is still hope for reopening of schools despite the increasing cases of covid 19.

"We have not lost the year, we can still catch up. The Ministry of Education has not planned for a dead year,"he said.

Grace Baguma, the director of the National Curriculum Development Centre, said the outbreak of the pandemic is an eye-opener for parents to be hands-on in learning since most of them have been detached from the education of children.

"I think the parents need to be more proactive. The content distributed is not new. We need to work on the attitude of our parents. Some can translate the work for their children. Let us not think the government has not provided, and then we sit back. Be proactive,"she advised.

Dr. Pamela Niyezimana, the science education officer in the ministry said the use of ICT will help children with disabilities.

She said there is a master copy of the braille produced for children with special needs, but there is no money to photocopy for distribution.

"A very big challenge in the area of children with special needs is that the parents may not understand them except the teachers. We need to train our parents,"she said.