Readiness to return to school

WITH JUST under a week to go before schools are supposed to reopen, we continue to address the issue of our readiness and, we add, preparedness to return to schools.

In our previous submission we emphasised the need to strengthen the Student Support Services Division of the Ministry of Education, the need for improving access to devices and internet connectivity for
all students regardless of their geographic location across this country as well as doing the metrics that will help us understand the problem with which we are faced, given the extended period our students have been away from school.

Acknowledging that the impact of the pandemic is not localised to TT, as we finalise arrangements to make the return possible, we can examine what has happened in other jurisdictions across the globe from which we can learn lessons that may be applicable in our context.

First important lesson is that mitigating the risk for facilitating the return to face-to-face reopening of school is a collective responsibility. Every category of citizens has its respective parts to play. The state machine must ensure the necessary policy and resources are in place for addressing health and safety matters, pedagogical approaches and managerial approaches that will help to safeguard life while addressing students’ learning needs.

Second key message (as outlined by the WHO in its Q & A, which can be found at https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-schools) is that all of the existing health and safety protocols must be sustained: physical distancing, wearing of masks, and the hygiene practices.

In practice, how we apply these measures and the accompanying impact will have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis that is dependent on the context of the school.

In other words, the size of the school population, its physical infrastructure, pupil-teacher ratio – all these factors will determine to what extent the guidelines being provided by the Ministry of Education can be implemented.

Most importantly, emerging from the foregoing is the maintenance of physical distancing in and out of the classroom. Given the size of some schools, this may mean that not all children may be able to return to school at this same time and other measures will have to be adopted, including ensuring that when students cannot attend school face-to-face, they have the necessary technological and other support to continue to participate in the education process.

Indeed, getting children back into school is only the first step in an ongoing process of risk mitigation as we learn to live with covid19. The WHO offers the following guidelines on steps that should be taken after school reopens in terms of monitoring and adjusting as necessary to ensure the safest possible environment for both students and staff.

It proposes that the following should be monitored:

* Effectiveness of symptom-reporting, monitoring, rapid testing and tracing of suspected cases.

* The effects of policies and measures on educational objectives and learning outcomes.

* The effects of policies and measures on health and well-being of children, siblings, staff, parents and other family members.

* The trend in school dropouts after lifting the restrictions.

* The number of cases in children and staff in the school, and frequency of school-based outbreaks in the local administrative area and the country.

* Assessment of impact of remote teaching on learning outcomes.

So clearly, beyond the opening guidelines that are being prepared, the ministry must continue to plan for and monitor the situation.

Additional measures to be taken include ongoing public media campaigns aimed at continuing to educate the public and dispel the uncertainty and distrust fuelled by misinformation, ensuring that appropriate systems for support from the health sector are available for responding to the needs of schools and putting in place all the necessary physical infrastructure to facilitate the reopening.

The challenge before us, while daunting, is not unresolvable, but it requires all hands on deck as well as transparency. The concerns of the citizenry need to be addressed in a frank manner, not one that is dismissive or derogatory. We are all vested in ensuring that our students can get the education they both need and deserve.

However, we have to approach this both systematically and systemically in which there is a clear pipeline to achieving our goals.

The future of our children in our country is at stake here; not widening the gap between the haves and the have-nots is also at stake. We must all do what we can.