REOPENING  SCHOOLS

When it’s deemed safe to reopen schools, the decision to reopening has to be weighed against the potential risks and many challenges it presents to the health and the safety of students and the teachers. The Education authorities and School Principals have to face the challenges of reopening, that would be much more challenging and complicated than shutdown. School Principals and Teachers will be confronted with a range of tasks they have never seen or done before.

The magnitude of the challenge could be understood by looking at the number of students and Teachers expected to walk into class rooms in 6117 schools conducting grades 10 to 13 classes Island wide once the schools are reopened (as proposed).

There are 567,032 students attending grades 12 and 13 classes in 2900 schools and 1,189,652 students attending grades 10 and 11 class in 3217 schools (Source: Ministry of Education Annual Performance Report – 2018) respectively, in the country. Also, approximately 75,000 of the total number of 247,045 teachers teach in these four grades (10 to 13) in 6117 Schools.

On school start dates, medical checkups, classes split in smaller groups, desks spaced one meter apart, physical distancing within and outside the classrooms, deep and regular cleaning and stricter sanitization measures and washing hands regularly are some measures needed to be practiced according to the instructions issued by the Public health and medical authorities. They have to be enforced and practiced in the schools. They are just some of the possible changes in store for the schools reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

With such measures in place schools will, in all likelihood, look significantly different when schools reopen. Teachers and students have to be prepared for the changes, including different schedules and methods not hitherto practiced; academic “catch-up” programs to mitigate significant learning loss to students.

Teachers and Students need to be aware exactly what they can do and can’t do, what they are allowed and not allowed to do; the health advice such as wearing face masks, physical distancing and washing hands and other sanitization measures. Teachers and Students need to be informed in advance through mass media of the changes they are expected to face as they enter the school premises and the class rooms. And any other important advice and instructions, the Education and Health authorities, security forces and the Police wish to convey to them. 

Parents can’t be exempted from this. Parents have to be provided with the best information possible that they need to make decisions. This is a very emotional issue. All are talking about their children. The students attending the schools at this stage, as announced are in grades 10 to 13; all between 15 to 18 years old. Yet, maintaining strict physical distancing, wearing face masks and other Public health advice on sanitation measures; the parents needs to be informed; these issues can spark worries among parents.

There are benefits of opening schools sooner to the students; keeping them lockdown at home is tremendously stressful to the students and to the parents alike. Government and public-health officials need to be sure schools maintain the highest level of sanitization and follow health advice that children and staff is safe in schools.

However, worries about bringing home COVID-19 is reasonably worrisome. Providing nearly 75,000 teachers with personal protective equipment is not feasible. Providing teachers with face masks may be necessary until the immediate threat of the wave of the virus has passed. It would help to ally teachers’ safety concerns. Teachers need to work to make it a success. But they also need to be safe.

We must be very careful not to assign, the present position of few fatalities and successful identification of infected persons to the attributes of a victory. But the enemy is still out there. The war is far from over we are still very much in the thick of it.

- RAJA WICKRAMASINGHE