COVID-19 complicates education

Cost to the economy

People familiar with the education matters says there’s need to pay attention to the potential downstream economic impact of widening access to education gap, caused by COVID-related school closures.

Harry J. Holzer, a Non-Resident Senior Fellow- Economic Studies, John LaFarge Professor of Public Policy, Georgetown University and James Lanich, President and CEO Educational Results Partnership opined in the Educational Result Partnership  publication that closing schools and quick  redeployment of online learning programs are adding a new layer of  inequality for the disadvantaged learners in terms of skills acquisition.

The duo says in the event that the impact of lost learning among disadvantaged learners is not properly mitigated, then, the access to education gap will widen further to potentially calamitous levels.

“Economic success today, and even more in the future, will require well-educated workers who have mastered a range of cognitive and analytical skills as well as social and communicative ones,” the duo said, adding “If an entire cohort of students fails to attain these skills, the losses will be felt not only by them but by the overall economy. Major and costly social dislocations, such as rising crime and poorer health, might also occur under these circumstances.”

Government reaction

Tony Mukasa Lusambu, the commissioner for Basic Education in the Ministry of Education and Sports told The Independent in an interview that the government is aware of the inequality in accessing education and is intervening.

“To narrow gap, we have three approaches: The first, we are in advanced stages of distributing printed materials. This time round, we want to ensure that the printed materials reaches every child,” he said.

“Secondly, we are in the process of securing radio sets, such that every family with a child at school will acquire a radio set.

“And, thirdly, we have advised our government teachers since they are still being paid salaries to support learners within their vicinity such that learners can do their work at home and then take to these teachers for checking, marking and advice.”

Lusambu said the government has also requested government teachers to regularly meet visit their schools and meet learners on one-on one basis without making formal classes.

However, the government plans to procure radios for learners has been blocked in parliament over its high cost of Shs337 billion.

In any case, critics says parents who earn less than a dollar a day may not afford to buy radio batteries that costs Shs2,500-3,000 to enable their children use the radios.

Goretti, however, says the critical moment will be when schools resume their normal operations amidst a huge backlog of uncompleted syllabus. The situation is further worsened with the fact that all the children are subjected to the same national examinations in order to move to the next level.

“Schools and teachers need to be aware and prepared of this (gap) that when schools re-open, they should be able to understand that the learners will be at different levels in terms of understanding issues and concepts…those who have been left behind need to be helped  to catch-up,” she said.

She also suggests that the government also comes up with an affirmative action for learners in eastern, northern and west Nile regions which usually lag behind in national examinations as a result of differences in social-economic status.

“Let us look at the resources that we have and distribute them equitably, giving most priority to those that are more in need,” she said.

Similarly, Bukirwa, suggests that the government cuts on the cost of internet and eliminates social media tax to facilitate educational information access to learners more easily.

She also recommends that parents cut down on the amount of domestic work their children have to do to allow more time for study.

“There’s also need to allocate more time for lessons on television and radios as well as avail radio and TV time tables to learners,” she said.

But parents such as Bwire and Grace Lomeni say the government needs to re-open schools. They say well laid down Standard Operating Procedures could be imposed to avoid spread of COVID-19.

“Radios or recorded educational materials won’t help our children,” Lomeni said, “you can’t rewind the message on radio once it is gone.”

Lomeni says just like in churches and markets, schools too can provide hand washing facilities and sanitizers to learners to contain spread of coronavirus.

“Failure to open schools soonest, we are going to see especially our young girls carrying their fellow children,” she said.

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Reporting for this story was supported by a grant from Wits Journalism and the African Investigative Journalism Conference.