Government; There is still hope for schools to open this year

The Ministry of Education and Sports has reassured the country that there is still hope to reopen schools despite the increasing cases of Covid-19.

This was revealed by the Director of Basic and Secondary School Education at the Ministry of Education, Al hajji Ismail Mulindwa during the National E-Dialogue aimed at mitigating the negative impact of Covid-19.

Mulindwa said that not all hope is lost, and that "as the ministry, we are not preparing for a dead year, that's the assurance I want to bring forward. Our honorable minister (Janet Museveni) was also very clear on that."

Al hajji Mulindwa said that as the ministry, they have also learnt a lesson from the ongoing pandemic that they need to have a response plan for any disaster and not just Covid-19.

Speaking at the same dialogue, Dr. Mary Gorreti Nakabugo, the executive director of UWEZO Uganda said, that one of the things that need to change post-COVID-19 should be ensuring that learners get to learn at their own pace and should not focus on just covering the syllabus.

"In some way, the learning was already declining before Covid-19. We can't expect what was not happening before. Those who were learning normally will benefit from the arrangement put in place by the government," she said.

The education sector was one of those that were severely distorted by the Covid-19 pandemic as the government ordered the closure of all learning institutions as a measure to combat the spread of the Coronavirus.

The National E-Dialogue was organized by the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, The Regional Education Learning Initiative, and in partnership with NBS Television.

Salima Namusobya who represented the Initiative for Social and Economic Rights, the organizers of the e-dialogue said, that before the pandemic, class sizes were too large which made social distancing almost impossible and schools can't be opened before this addressed.

Namusobya said that vulnerable groups were also ignored in schools as the government's inclusive policy remains on paper with no implementation.

"The pandemic has raised the commercialization of the education sector. The stakeholders have to ensure that education is available to all,"

Children should be included in designing education programs. Many stakeholders, including children, have the solutions for continued learning.

We need to ensure there is continued learning. Even if a girl got pregnant, we should be able to bring her back to the education system.