Museveni to address Ugandans on Schools Reopening today at 8pm

KAMPALA, UGANDA: President Yoweri Museveni will today Thursday, February 4, 2021 address the country to clarify matters on reopening of schools for non-candidates.

In a statement released by the Cabinet on Tuesday, schools will now be allowed to reopen for non-candidates starting with semi-finalists in what they called a staggered manner with full compliance with COVID-19 Standard Operating Procedures.

The President in his speech is expected to give details in terms of dates when the different groups will return to school.

According to government, Primary 6, Senior 3 and Senior 5 students will be the first allowed back when schools re-open to non-candidate learners. But no date was set.

Cabinet resolved that in order to complete the academic year and ensure progression, all semi candidate classes, which include Primary Six, Senior three and senior five should report back to school in the short term and study with the candidate classes. Promotion to the next class will be based on attendance and continuous assessment of classwork and assignments.

However, Pre-Primary schools will remain closed because the learners in this category cannot observe SOPs and are prone to respiratory infections. It added that because many of the pre-primary institutions are day-based, there is a lot of interfaces between learners, teachers and parents, which could increase the risk of infections.

But higher institutions have been given a task to open in the short term. The Technical Vocational Education and Training Institutions, National Teachers Colleges’ and Primary Teachers Colleges are expected to open in the short term because many of them have the infrastructure capacity for the number of students enrolled, to observe the social distancing requirement. The ministers said that all students in these tertiary institutions should be allowed to report back with the final year students.

Education institutions have now been advised to emphasize preventive actions for learners and staff on a daily basis. This, the Ministers say, should include training of staffs to enable them to transfer knowledge to learners and other workers in education institutions. All learners will be required to wear face masks.

At the same time, the Ministry of health will constitute a team of Doctors to visit schools affected by COVID-19 in support of schools and the district task force.