So “school open” yesterday! And maybe the kids have another reason to groan than the traditional one protesting the end of just hanging around with no homework to submit! This other reason is the schedule that was released for the different levels of the schoolchildren.
There’s no such thing as just showing up to school anymore with this COVID-19! For nursery there will be face-to-face classes – but with rotation so that all newbies can be accommodated in accordance with social distancing rules. So, who’ll attend which shift? The authorities will decide and so inform the parents. Your Eyewitness hopes that this logistical challenge will be handled without too much trauma for our little darlings.
From Grade 1 to 7 there will the choice of face-to-face or online classes – but compulsory face-to-face for Grades 8 to 12. Got all of that? It’s not over! If the kids don’t want to show up, their parents are responsible for them keeping up with what goes on in school. Are you confused enough by now, Dear Reader? Well, your Eyewitness thanks his lucky star he’s not schlepping kids any longer to school because – even though he agrees that we must try to get back some kind of normalcy into our lives – this gotta be stressful for the parents.
They don’t just have to worry about kids getting into fights (your Eyewitness was notorious for this!) or being bullied, but now as to whether the kids can contract a deadly virus and bring it home to grandma.
Your Eyewitness sees this year’s school opening as a test of how well our authorities can sort out all the adjustments that will have to be made for us to deal with this new and deadly challenge that looks like it will become the new “normal”. Will the kids be disciplined enough to keep their masks on at all times? Will the teachers? What happens if some poor kid don’t have a mask? Or if the mask drops on the ground and gets dirty? Will all schools have spare masks? Will they have sanitisers? Even in the best of times we used to be challenged with just supplying chalk…how about all these new demands? Your Eyewitness just hopes that the Ministry of Education has been given enough resources – especially human – to deal with the new challenges.
And deal with them they must! Across the world, there’ve already been studies showing the negative impact the loss of education delivery to a substantial number of children across age cohorts because of COVID-19 will have on future development.
With our economy taking off with the oil find, we can’t afford to have another generation being educationally unprepared.
…in electoral laws?
Your Eyewitness is more than a tad confused about the status of the proposed changes the Government wanted to make in the Representation of the People Act (ROPA). With the flak they faced about not giving the Opposition “enough time” to ruminate over the changes in the NRF Bill, they should ask the Opposition why they aren’t traversing the country educating their constituents (or riling them up!!) on the proposals. Surely, if we go by the Opposition’s rhetoric – and those worthies from civil society – the PPP must be pulling a fast one!!
Your Eyewitness just saw one of the latter groups – suddenly become coy about listing their names! – accusing the Government of something sinister (and provocative!) in their suggestion to break up Reg 4 for “administrative efficiency”! From where your Eyewitness stands, he’s always in trepidation about Reg 4’s results and the Mingo Manoeuvre in March 2020 didn’t do anything to reassure him.
Can the worthies explain how subdividing Reg 4 wouldn’t speed up declaring the results?
…in politics?
To be honest, your Eyewitness doesn’t want politics to return to “normal”. Not when “normal” in the eyes of the PNC means violating the Constitution, rigging elections, inciting riots, and storming the Speaker’s desk to seize his Mace.
