Heading back to school in the pandemic

Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | An entire generation has seen its education interrupted.

At the height of nationwide lockdowns in April, approximately 91 percent of the world’s students in more than 194 countries were out of school. This caused immeasurable disruption to the lives, learning and wellbeing of children around the world.

As school doors reopen, candidates will return to their respective schools while their counterparts in non-finalist classes will be learning from home in what the government has termed; the homeschooling programme.

However, many parents and approximately 12.7 million learners at primary and secondary levels that have had a six-months unprecedented holiday are still wondering how their continued learning programme is going to be.

According to the National Curriculum Development Centre, they intend to print self-study materials out of the curriculum that will be distributed to every learner. Grace Baguma, the NCDC director says the self-study materials will be printed in form of simple reading booklets or notes.

“We have tried to simplify the content and produced material that can be comprehended by learners at their respective level,” says Baguma, adding that the same materials indicate the learning outcomes of each lesson and the needed instructional materials.

Baguma also explains that there will be some questions at the end of a given lesson or learning topic. The questions will be used to assess the competence of the learners on a given topic when normal school resumes.

Unlike in the first phase where the self-study materials focused on areas that learners had covered before the school lockdown, this time round, they intend to print material covering all topics studied in second and third terms for all non-finalist classes both in primary and secondary.

Each learner is expected to get a package covering all the subjects taught at his level. For instance, a primary five pupil is expected to get material covering subjects like science, English language, social studies, religious education and mathematics, all covering the entire syllabus of the said class.

This primary five learner, just like other non-finalists, is expected to make a timetable and read the said booklet with help of his peers, guardians or parents and later attempt some of the questions that would have been provided.

Since there will be no teachers at home, learners will also be guided to look out for the learning aids for a particular lesson that will appear as an introduction part before the content of a given lesson.