COVID-19; A BLESSING IN DISGUISE FOR LEARNERS.
“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies, but the thankful heart will find in every hour, some blessings.” Henry Beecher. Life is fraught with surprises, and things happen fast and furious. Some of these surprises can be positive, while others will be negative with unprecedented ripple effects. If someone made a prediction last year December that the 2020 school calendar would be null and void due to the novel coronavirus that had not found its roots in any African country, everybody could have spurned the prediction. Such a story could have been easily wished away and rubbished by Kenyans from all walks of life.
However, on 15th March 2020, months after the virus had ravaged several European and Asian countries, the much-feared reality finally struck home-Kenya had recorded her first Coronavirus case. To curb the spread of the virus, the government in cahoot with the ministry of health quickly instituted a litany of measures, albeit to some Kenyans’ chagrin.
Schools, political gatherings, places of worship, and all social gatherings were closed. After four months of walking the ‘new normal journey,’ the president on 6th July directed that places of worship resume partial congregational worship with strict adherence to the health regulations on Covid-19
However, primary and Secondary schools will remain closed until January 2021, with this year’s Kenya Certificate of Primary Examinations (KCPE) and Kenya Certificate of Secondary Examination (KCSE) being pushed to later next year.
It is against this backdrop that I find it necessary to offer some ray of hope to the already sad learners. We all loathe inconveniences even if it is for a minute. Nobody would wish to repeat a class, mainly if such a decision was not based on learners’ intellectual abilities. Ever since the decision to end the 2020 school calendar, stories on how the Ministry of Education made an imprudent decision have run amok. A section of parents, education professionals, and teachers have poked holes into the decision, further driving learners into psychosocial stress.
However, rather than rue the decision, parents, learners, and teachers must consider this unprecedented move a blessing in disguise. The holiday may seem too long, but bountiful reward awaits those learners who will grab the so-called ‘wasted year’ and use it to their advantage.
For slow/average leaners, this is the perfect time to gather their tact and engage in more intense but relaxed learning. With teachers technically’ out of duty, these learners, with the help of their parents, can hire the services of such tutors in a more relaxed and serene atmosphere.
Such a program will allow the learners to understand better what they could not in crowded classrooms and pressure teachers to finish the syllabus. If it can be embraced with utmost zeal and determination, the exercise will improve their performance tenfold without peradventure.
Besides learners improving their academic performance, the pandemic has also provided parents with the opportunity to teach their children essential life skills. The 21st-century learners have been accused of being too weak and unable to cope with the fast-changing environment. It is worrying that most of our children cannot efficaciously perform simple and basic activities such as cooking, house cleaning and decoration, farming, and many others that demand their attention. Parents should thus use this opportunity to imbue their children with a sense of responsibility and equip them with a multifaceted approach of dealing with the demands of current and future life.
The writer is a secondary school teacher
Twitter @MwalimuSteve2