Putting the 2020 education year under the microscope
Yesteryear’s education calendar was an impasse, difficult, perplexing and a novel one to the education fraternity. Now that we are on the cusp of the 2021 education year, it would be vital to retrogress and analyze the education rendered in 2020, how best to use the experience from the antecedent education year to our advantage this year, and against all odds, can we really expect desirable results from the last year’s grade 11s and 12s? Also, what’s the probability of quality education amidst the pandemic?
One thing that was clear last year was that education under the pandemic compromised the four basic goals of education, which are: equality, quality, access, and democracy. Prime example, when Walvis Bay was the epicentre of the pandemic, the learners there had to stay at home while others were being educated. In that instance, access and equality were not met. What if a certain region/area becomes an epicentre this year, how best are we going to mitigate the education there without compromising it with intermittent classes?
Also, online education as a mitigation process proved to be a fiasco to public schools. The poorest children in the country carried a heavy burden as they were forced to adapt to online education which they couldn’t access or accessed but received no quality education. This also showed how behind our education system is, as most teachers couldn’t use modern technology to educate and let alone the learners who lacked knowledge on how to use WhatsApp Messenger and the Zoom Video communications technology.
In fact, a story is widely told of a learner in the Kavango East region at Sauyemwa Combined School who was asked by his teacher to download the Zoom application, but all he did was download pictures of Jacob Zuma. Clearly the e-learning intervention was a fiasco. With the prior experience, how best can we use modern technology to our advantage this year in our schools? Food for thought!
Ironically, due to Covid-19, there have been much greater appreciation and gratitude for teachers for their skills and invaluable role, in learner’s well-being as most parents struggled to work with their children at home. That’s at least one positive thing the pandemic has yielded for educators.
So much must be done in conditioning the learners to put on masks regularly, washing and sanitizing of hands and the teachers must set the example first. Though it’s tricky to always maintain social distance, especially during breaktime and after school, schools must find ways on how to improve that practice
The teenage pregnancy conundrum must also be treated with caution. The statistics showed that there was an increase in teenage pregnancy as learners spent most time at home. A massive 3 625 girls became pregnant during the lockdown. Possibly, in the absence of school, they resorted to sexual intercourse for fun. More education and information must be shared to combat teenage pregnancy, especially in rural areas amidst the pandemic.
Failure to do that, we will face a pandemic within the pandemic.
The likeness of yielding desirable results from last year’s grade 11s and 12s is also tricky. Most teachers feared the virus, hence they failed to have extra classes, remedial teaching or put in extra effort in their teaching. Learners too were psychologically affected by the pandemic, and consequently, this daunted their learning spirit, aptitude, and courage in their education endeavour. Hopefully, 2021 would be much more bearable and kinder to the education fraternity.