After a long hiatus caused by the global pandemic, all schools in the Western Province were finally reopened for all grades, including preschool, from yesterday (29).
Speaking to former Secretary to the Ministry of Education and EFSL Co-Founder Dr. Tara de Mel, she commented that while this is a welcome move, there are a few concerns we need to address. We also asked family practitioner and University of Colombo Family Medicine Department lecturer Dr. Dineshani Hettiarachchi Sirisena who stated that increasing onsite teaching is beneficial for the kids, but since there is a pandemic going on, we need to take special precautions and adhere to the regulations.
Below are the top five concerns raised regarding the reopening of schools.
- Lack of resources
Dr. De Mel noted that the majority of Sri Lankan schools don’t have adequate space or basic resources for distancing, partitioning desks and chairs, etc. or other key items needed for proper sanitation or to adhere to the regulations in place for the pandemic.
“Some schools don’t even have a source of tap water, so maintaining adequate hygiene and preventing the spread of Covid will be a big challenge for them,” she added.
- Educators not prioritised for vaccine
Since teachers, principals, teaching assistants, and all educators were not prioritised in the “priority groups” identified for immediate vaccination in January and February, both Dr. De Mel and Dr. Hettiarachchi noted that an additional risk exists.
“This is more so, since children aren’t eligible for the vaccination and they can easily catch the disease from their teacher, and be a carrier. Had the teacher population (250,000-plus) been targeted as a priority group for vaccination before schools started, it would have been a comforting factor.”
Dr. Hettiarachchi stated that it’s concerning that the vaccine hasn’t been rolled out yet for teachers, as they should have been involved in the priority group. Dr. De Mel added that at least in April, all teachers need to be vaccinated as top priority.
- Student rotation affects comprehensive education
Dr. De Mel informed us that some schools have arranged for batches of students to attend in rotation in order to prevent overcrowding of classrooms. She observed that this is a sensible move but it poses the challenge of delivering a comprehensive education covering all subjects to all students, so that students continue to learn as in the pre-Covid era.
She made it known that a well-thought-out strategy is needed to enable teachers to impart lessons adequately so that teachers are not overly stressed and also so that no child is left behind in this new education delivery scenario.
Dr. Hettiarachchi also observed that when children are left alone, there is a great psychological impact on them, so the idea of rotation is also not the best one. Adding to this, she also noted that the long-term use of technology may lead to adverse effects on children’s eyes.
Moreover, she further observed that this is an increased burden on parents as they have to adjust their schedule around onsite and online learning.
- The ‘Covid Generation’
The “Covid Generation” has now become a popular buzzword globally. It refers to the short and long-term impact on children who were left out of education for over 10 months (i.e left out of onsite education, online education, or both). She explained that these include widening the learning gaps of already education-deprived students, further increasing social-emotional issues in all children having to be out of the learning cycle, stunting of mental and emotional growth, increasing incidence of abuse (physical, emotional, and sexual) in children confined to their homes, and in some cases, deprivation of midday meals and hence leading to nutrition impairment.
“Of the ‘Covid Generation’, the worst off are students who are at the bottom of the pyramid socioeconomically. They invariably get pushed further down. So schools and the education system must introduce systems to mitigate these learning and other gaps when schools commence,” she stated, adding that she is unsure whether there are policies introduced for this mitigation.
Speaking to Dr. Hettiarachchi, she added that since it’s a pandemic, no one has answers to the problems that have occurred because of it, but that we need to have more than one plan in place because in the case plan A fails, there’s always plan B to fall back on, as failing which the students education is affected.
Another issue that centres on this term is the need for assessment of structure for exams. “With the pandemic, kids were unable to properly attend school for a year, so now that they are back in school, the question of whether schools will be more lenient on their examination structures arises,” stated Dr. Hettiarachchi.
- Lack of internet access
“Some schools don’t even have a source of tap water, so maintaining adequate hygiene and preventing the spread of Covid will be a big challenge for them” EFSL Co-Founder Dr. Tara de Mel
“During the 2020 school closures, students who had access to the internet were about 48%,” Dr. de Mel stated, adding that those who had access to devices like laptops, tabs, smartphones were about 30% only.
“Out of this group, just about 5% only (obviously students from privileged homes) had access to real-time, face-to-face learning using online education through Google Classroom and similar tools. The rest had to do with teachers communicating with them on lessons using PDF via WhatsApp and similar applications.”
Fortunately, Dr. de Mel explained that school textbooks were in possession of every eligible student, so they were able to refer to those while at home. Explaining further, she added: “The TV-based teaching experiment was not entirely successful, despite the fact that >90% of households had at least one TV. The authorities should use this information to understand the massive learning gaps that will take place during education emergencies leading to school closures in the future.”
Covid is just one example. Emergencies land on us unannounced, and unless we are fully prepared to face any eventuality, the same mistakes will recur. The impact on the Covid Generation should be studied and efforts at mitigation should be swift and sizable.
