Cabinet has approved a recommendation for the reopening of schools to non-candidate learners. The schools were closed in March 2020 as a measure to control the spread of coronavirus disease.
Although no dates have been announced for the official reopening, the cabinet said in a statement this morning that schools will now be allowed to reopen in a staggered manner that will ensure compliance with COVID-19 standard Operating Procedures.
The Ministers resolved that in order to complete the academic year and ensure progression, all semi candidate classes, which include Primary Six, Senior three and senior five should report back to school in the short term and study with the candidate classes.
Promotion to the next class will be based on attendance and continuous assessment of classwork and assignments.
However, Pre-Primary schools will remain closed because the learners in this category cannot observe SOPs and are prone to respiratory infections.
It added that because many of the pre-primary institutions are day-based, there is a lot of interfaces between learners, teachers and parents, which could increase the risk of infections.
But higher institutions have been given a task to open in the short term. The Technical Vocational Education and Training Institutions, National Teachers Colleges’ and Primary Teachers Colleges are expected to open in the short term because many of them have the infrastructure capacity for the number of students enrolled, to observe the social distancing requirement.
