Possible dead year for learners as Education Minister Janet Museveni calls for patience in reopening schools

The Minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni has called for patience as far as the issue of reopening of schools is concerned.

While addressing the nation on Friday evening at State House, Janet, who is also Uganda’s First Lady said time was not yet right to have learners going back to their institutions of learning; not even for candidate classes as they had earlier thought.

“What we are learning from our local trends of Covid-19 as well as experiences from countries that had closed but later reopened institutions of learning is that we need to exercise patience and self-restraint on the matter of normal resumption of institutions learning,” she said.

“For primary and secondary education levels, we are delivering continuity of learning through radio and TV stations around the country. In addition, Government provided printed learning materials for 25% of learners for the start as we wait for more funds to scale up the intervention.”

On the issue of reopening institutions of higher learning, Janet said that the Education Ministry’s departments of Business Technical Vocational Education and Training (BTVET), Teacher and Instructor Education and Training (TIET) are working with Principals of institutions to generate home study learning models and materials for continuity of learning.

She advised universities and tertiary institutions to adopt e-learning.

The Minister also dispelled reports that the Ministry of Education and Sports prohibited e-learning according to sections of the media.

“This is absolutely not true; we cannot be the ones banning what we are promoting,” she said.

President Museveni ordered the closure of all educational institutions in March 2020 in a bid to contain the spread of Covid-19 pandemic.

And last month, during his state of nation address on covid-19, the President said that schools were supposed to wait to open.

“With the school population, let us be patient. In the meantime, we are going to launch a big long-distance education programme, certainly through radios. We are going to give free radio-sets to all homesteads,” he said.