The Ministry of Education has revealed that all learners will be promoted to the next class when schools reopen.
Appearing on NBS TV’s Morning Breeze show on Wednesday, Dr Dennis K. Mugimba, the Ministry’s Spokesperson said they are not planning to have a dead year and so all continuing learners will be moved to the next class before the end of academic year 2020/2021.
“The P1s will move to P2, the P2s will move to P3. Children of 6 years will join P1.Dr. Our priority is to have the classes that haven’t reopened since March 2020 report to school first,” Dr Mugimba noted.
He added that the Education Ministry has a roadmap in place that will guide the school re-opening depending on the President’s directive on how to safely re-open education institutions that have been locked up since June 18, 2021.
“The roadmap is a living document, we had planned to open in October. Depending on the President’s address tonight, we shall tweak the roadmap and roll it out.”
Mugimba’s remarks come at a time when President Museveni is going to address the nation today Wednesday regarding the situation of Covid-19 in Uganda. Museveni is expected to among others address the issue of schools, bars and places of worship that are still closed due to the pandemic.
A few days ago it was disclosed that primary and secondary schools were likely to be reopened next year in January.
This was according to a source who attended last Thursday’s meeting by the National Covid-19 Taskforce, Ministry of Education , Health Ministry and other Education stakeholders. The meeting was aimed at forging a way forward on the safe reopening of schools.
“The meeting resolved to have the vaccination exercise heightened for teachers in schools before they reopen because of the projection of a looming covid-19 third wave. If the vaccination is achieved, then it will be much safer to have learners go back to school. Another target for the vaccination are the parents of the learners who hold a high risk of infection and that way, we’ll be able to contain the virus in the event that it resurges,”the source said.
“Learners in primary and secondary schools will have to wait for 10 January, 2022.”
The source also said that universities and other tertiary institutions will resume on-campus business on November 20th this year.
Last month, President Museveni turned down proposal to have schools reopened in October, 2021.
Dr Mugimba, said ministries of education and health, and the Covid-19 national taskforce had proposed that schools reopen next month, but Museveni said the dates are too near given the looming threat of the third wave of Covid-19.
“Given the emerging realities of [low] vaccination rate of teachers, non-teaching staff and students above 18 years, the President asked us to rethink another date and report back next week,” Dr Mugimba said recently.
“His argument was that the last time government reopened schools, learners took back the infections to their parents and a number of them lost their lives.”
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