THE re-opening of schools this year hangs in the balance
with officials saying they are continuing to monitor the Covid-19 pandemic
trends in the country, especially relating to local transmissions before
committing themselves to a particular position.
Last month Government deferred the re-opening of schools to
a later date from the initial 28 July citing the rising number of local
transmissions. As of Friday, the country had recorded 4 451 confirmed Covid-19
cases with 3 353 being local transmissions.
In an interview with Sunday News, Deputy Minister of
Primary and Secondary Education, Cde Edgar Moyo said they could not commit
themselves to when schools will eventually open or on the sitting of the
November public examinations. He, however, revealed that the Ministry was
taking advantage of the uncertainty of the actual re-opening dates to gather the
required Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) so that by the time schools
eventually open they will be ready.
“We are presently monitoring trends particularly Covid-19
local infections, if they continue escalating as they are doing now, we will
have to defer re-opening further, mainly as a means of protecting our learners
and teachers. As a Ministry, however, we have continued readying ourselves for
the eventual re-opening through the purchasing of PPEs and perfecting our
modules. We have also been fine tuning our radio lessons and to communities
that do not get radio signals we are also in the process of producing physical
modules related to the radio lessons,” said Deputy Minister Moyo.
On the sitting of November public examinations, the Deputy
Minister revealed that it will be directly related to the re-opening of
schools, noting that since those sitting for the examinations were
predominantly school candidates there was a need for them to get adequate
learning time before writing the exams.
“For June examinations you should note that most of those
writing were private candidates but for the November examinations we mainly
have school candidates hence for them to be ready to sit for the exams. They
need adequate learning time so that they are able to complete the syllabus. So,
at the moment the only time we can talk of November examinations is when we
have a set date for the re-opening of schools,” he said.
Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) chairperson
Professor Eddie Mwenje is on record as saying examinations will only be written
when students have completed the syllabus and when it is safe to do so, even if
it means pushing the examinations to December this year or January next year.
He said Zimsec understands that there was little time for students to prepare
for examinations given that schools closed in March this year.
Prof Mwenje, however, said Zimsec would not compromise the
quality and substance of Zimbabwe’s education by lowering the pass mark for
students to score better grades. Instead, they would ensure that the syllabus
is completed before students sit for exams. Schools were closed in March and
the second term was supposed to have come to an end last week. Under normal
circumstances, Grade Seven pupils were supposed to start writing examinations
next month. Sunday News
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