By Peter Ochieng
Learners continue to flock back to school for beginning of the second term.
Schools were scheduled to reopen on April 29, 2024, before the reopening was postponed twice due to raging floods caused by heavy rains across the country.
Learners in at least 2000 schools across the country are however not going back to school as at now, as their schools are either inaccessible due to flooding or infrastructure has been destroyed by the floods.
Mwanaisha Chidzuga, Deputy Government Spokesperson during an interview on Radio Citizen on Monday said plans are in top gear to have the affected learners relocated to neighbouring schools, or put up temporary tents to accommodate them, so that they don’t miss lessons.
The seasoned journalist said rains have reduced in most parts of the country, and that the situation is not as bad as it was some days ago.
“This doesn’t mean that the students will not continue with their learning. At least 30 counties have been affected by the floods, but luckily the situation is not as bad as it was before. We can put up makeshift tents. Most schools are okay as we speak,” she said.
A good chunk of the at least 2,000 schools not reopening today are in Tana River, Homa Bay, Kisumu and Nairobi. The four counties have been among the most hit by flooding.
Chidzuga said the government is contemplating extending the second term; to account for the two weeks delay in reopening of schools, days after Cabinet Secretary for Education Ezekiel Machogu shared a similar sentiment.
Speaking on Thursday last week during an inspection exercise in Nairobi, Machogu said the extension would give students time to cover the syllabus, especially those expected to sit for the national examination in November.
“Particularly for Form Four candidates, we will see how we can recover time lost by extending the second term by a few days. They were expected to close for three weeks in August and we might minimize the number of days schools will be closed,” Machogu said.
He added that the national examinations will go on as scheduled.
“The examination calendar remains the same; KCSE and KPSEA will be taken in the normal time from November.”