The return to classrooms on the 28th of this month is not final, and the Ministry of Education will monitor the health indicator for the coronavirus in order to decide the form of learning in the current academic year. “If the spread requires distance learning, we will proceed in that direction,” said the Minister of Education in the caretaker government Tarek Al-Majzoub, renewing the call to the donor bodies to provide electronic devices for pupils. But if the health situation improves, the ministry will proceed with blended learning between in-person and remote.
Most private schools have begun teaching “online” and are awaiting the zero hour of the Ministry of Education's announcement of the start of in-person teaching in order to decide whether or not to adopt this form of teaching. However, applying in-person teaching in the present circumstances will not be possible except through simulation, according to the director of Al-Kawthar High School Rana Ismail.
Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association had chosen the school as a place for a gradual trial return to the classrooms before the official date of the start of the academic year, in order to test the situation and the ability to proceed with the experiment, “especially as kindergarten and basic education pupils will face a great crisis in adapting to distance learning”, as Ismail says.
But not a week had passed before the school was struck by the infection of the first kindergarten class teacher - French section - with the coronavirus, which last Friday caused alarm among the families and made some hesitate to send their children back to school. However Ismail spoke of “containing the incident and of the transparency the administration followed: we did not hush up the news but personally undertook to inform the families of the infection, sent the pupils back home and asked for another class teacher and one of the workers to be quarantined after they were considered contacts, according to the definition set out in the health protocol the school follows, which blends several protocols applied in countries around the world”. According to Ismail, this protocol allows for the maximum preventive measures to be taken, since one group of pupils does not mix with groups from other classes.
Yesterday between 70% and 90% of the classes that had begun in-person teaching returned, according to Ismail's estimates. She pointed out that the school had created classrooms in the outdoor spaces where pupils spend at least one or two periods, as these are safer than closed halls.
On what Al-Mabarrat Association would do if it were officially decided to begin teaching online, she affirmed “that we will organize a protest movement towards the Ministry of Education, for the situation cannot bear the loss of a second academic year. We will adopt blended teaching: a day of teaching in the classroom and a day of teaching by way of the electronic platform.” She pointed out that the association's other schools had organized in-person introductory meetings for pupils and their families, who attended for an hour in order to learn about the measures taken for in-person teaching.
Writer: Faten Al-Hajj
