Lechwelight already on 2022 syllabus
MAHLANYA – As most schools countrywide are still completing the syllabus for the 2021 academic year, Lechwelight Schools have begun the 2022 syllabus.
This is because while schools were officially closed by government last year due to COVID-19, the political unrest and class boycotts, pupils from the school were learning online.
The school’s Director, Edmund Nkonde, said they had implemented a compressed syllabus which was taught to the pupils face-to-face in a shift system and online during the interruptions.
Completing
Nkonde said this resulted in the school completing the syllabus on time as all assessments were conducted in the period usually allocated for an academic year.
Worth noting is that schools last year reopened in March as opposed to January, given that the third wave was at its peak, limiting face-to-face learning.
For many schools, this resulted in learners having about 115 days of faceto-face learning albeit on a rotational basis. This translates to about three months and 20 days of learning for external grades that were now and again recalled to school by the Ministry of Education and Training. Under normal circumstances, they should have attended about 197 days, which is seven months and 13 days. Worth noting is that other grades have missed approximately 10 months of learning.
However, instead of implementing the rotational basis that was adopted by government schools wherein pupils alternated the days in which they were in class, Nkonde said they used a shift system which allowed pupils to be split into two groups, with one learning until noon while the other partook in lessons after lunch.
“This was to avoid having learners missing any day in a case when there was a holiday or when there were disturbances. The pupils attended school every day in this system,” Nkonde said.
He said the learners were also being taught through the compressed syllabus that was issued by the Ministry of Education and Training. The compressed syllabus, according to the Lechwelight
Schools director, compacted similar topics offered in two different years into one.
This, he said, resulted in learners completing their lessons for the 2021 academic year in the same year. Nkonde said this had resulted in the school having four vacant classes as they were waiting for an intake for completing classes in Form 1 and IV.
Moment
“At the moment, we have two Form III classes wherein one is completing the syllabus at the end of March while the other will be winding up at the end of the year; that is if the academic year is not shifted again.”
He said it was the same thing for pupils in Form V as one group was preparing for their examinations while another had just begun lessons.
Nkonde said the completion of the 2021 academic year last year had become a blessing for them as it availed four classes to use for ensuring the social distance and having minimal learners per class. Ordinarily, he said, each class had an intake of about 30 learners.
On the other hand, Nkonde said the blending of technology and faceto-face lessons did not augur well with parents as they did not pay. He said many parents were skeptical in paying the school fees as they were not certain of the means of delivering lessons.
He further thanked parents for having faith in the school and assured them that there was intensive revision going on with regard to Grade VII, Form III and V who were to start writing external exams soon and was hopeful it would yield good results.
An expert in the education field, who is a teacher by profession, noted that schools had to come up with innovative ways to ensure that pupils had continuous education.
“The means of delivering education under the COVID-19 and political unrest situation may vary but at the end of the day, schools need to be innovative and ensure that pupils are taught at the end of the day. Government really needs to look into the issue of online lessons, even for public schools as this will ease the pressure should there be disturbances,” she said.