As John Bailey opined in his July 14, 2020 article, ‘Reopening Resilient Schools,’ hosted by ‘Education Next,’ that ‘in planning to reopen, schools will be forced to question long-standing assumptions and develop strategies that can lead to building a better education system. The process can help to distinguish between the superfluous and the essential and build from those fundamentals.’
There is a consensus amongst educationists that the transformational changes brought forth by COVID-19 does not allow us to return to previous, largely ineffective academic methodologies that have not allowed us to accomplish the goals we have for our students, nor do they call on us to believe that the best we can do is to merely cope through a temporary, hybrid system. Rather, they require us to rethink the future of education and radically improve our current system. There is no denying that COVID-19 has provided a unique opportunity to reimagine the education system for the future. One is coerced to question the existence of any political and administrative will from education authorities in the country to steer the ship to the right direction, considering a myriad of precedents.
As I perused through the Times of Swaziland on Friday, December 18, 2020, I came across an article by Thokozani Mamba headlined ‘Uncertainty over schools opening due to COVID-19.’ In his article, Mamba interviewed the Controlling Officer at the Ministry of Education and Training [MoET], Bertram Stewart, on the preparedness or lack thereof of the MoET to re-open schools in 2021. To say I was disappointed in the response by the PS would be an understatement. The question was lucid: is there a Contingency Plan by the MoET to ensure that all schools [933 in public] and those in private, open in a safe and secure manner, considering the fact that the second wave is inevitable. As if entirely oblivious of reality, the PS averred that the decision of the government lies with the impulsive behaviour of the virus with Cabinet giving the last shot on the thoroughfare to be adhered to by the MoET.
On the 14th of September 2020, the WHO, UNESCO and UNICEF publicised a paper titled ‘Considerations for school-related public health measures in the context of COVID-19,’ where the three [3] postulated that from a public health perspective, deciding to close or reopen schools should be guided by a risk-based approach, taking into consideration the epidemiology of COVID-19 at the local level, the capacity of educational institutions to adapt their system to operate safely; the impact of school closures on educational loss, equity, general health and wellbeing of children and educators; and the range of other public health measures being implemented outside school. That the decisions on full or partial closure or reopening should be taken at a local administrative level, based on the local level of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the local risk assessment, as well as how much the reopening of educational settings might increase transmission in the community.