Chinua Achebe in his ever-green Things Fall Apart says Ojukwu, the bird, learnt to fly without perching on realising that hunters were hawk-eyed and were shooting without missing targets.
Hand-wringing or nail-biting situations dot the world, but the innovative still find a way out of the maze. Survival of the fittest is the new name of the teaching game in the Covid-19 season, but the challenge will continue after the storm subsides and schools resume normal business, albeit with abnormal demands.
Quiet, peace, and routines that run like the clockwork define the school environment, encouraging even the laziest student to sit somewhere and read.
The problem is, the world has changed under the Covid-19 measures to tame the spread of the contagious virus. Learners are out of school probably up to the first week of June from mid-March.
The teachers’ physical presence, support, and kindness is now missing and the learner can only see the tutor virtually, for schools of privilege and class. The rest are relying on public programmes like the Radio and TV Teacher through the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD) programmes while struggling with unreliable internet connections.
“If the schools remain closed until June, it will be very bad. We know our students; they are not in touch with books,” a teacher told A Plain before the Ministry of Education “extended” the April holiday by a month.
Online school programmes are not working for rural-based schools. In such settings, smartphones are a pipe dream”
It is, therefore, sad and baffling that the government is using official data like internet and mobile phone penetration to assess the efficacy of virtual learning that is, at best, a hurried pilot. Based on the numbers, the government has said national examinations KCPE and its secondary school sister KCSE will go on as planned.
According to the Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha, the anxious “fear-mongers” who keep biting their nails about whether the examinations will be done on schedule or not should relax. The government, Prof Magoha said, will ensure that the students are well prepared before sitting for the tests.
Indeed, even the premium private school students, through their parents, have questioned the content of the e-lessons, saying some did not have the more critical subjects like ICT. Fairly, Kenya is experimenting with this mode of learning at a difficult time and may return a worrying verdict.
It is also fair that a fraction of the population is anxious about these future-determining national examinations. For example, a national exam candidate is likely to be under a lot of pressure from peers, friends and families to stay on the same professions curve. A family of medics is keen to get more medical personnel; nothing else.
Nonetheless, there is no firm assurance yet that learning of substance is taking place at a time students may wrongly think they are on normal holiday while parents are giving them chores and pushing them into economic activities “at this trying moment.”
Experience shows that when students stay away from school for long, they forget their lessons, except under proper guidance, keen parenting, and personal drive.
Stirring up students from the current ‘Sleep Mode’ will definitely be challenging and presents a headache to the learners, teachers, school administrators and parents.
It, therefore, behoves all these stakeholders to up their ante and operate as if schools were indeed on. Back in school, it would be disastrous for students who, during the Covid-19 forced break, were not in touch with books, like the teacher above said.
Woe unto parents who have abdicated the role of guiding their children while it is the duty of teachers and the schools to keep reminding their customers that learning continues, the hitches notwithstanding. The KCPE and KCSE candidates must make hay while the sun is up.
While there are many hurdles to using modern technologies in learning, every stakeholder ought to realise that ‘virtualness’ is the future of school, employment, gigs, and communication. While working from home was alien to employers and staff, the Covid-19 necessity has created it and hinted to companies that it works.
It is only reasonable that we embrace it with little effort. All this chaos brought by coronavirus can be turned into an opportunity to advance in technology use that removes physical barriers for the determined who want to pass exams, grow profits, and enjoy the quiet of ‘corner office’ at home.
The government should use realities like the new coronavirus disease to enact and improve policies for a less disrupted future.
