As the learning institutions prepare to reopen teachers in South Sudan’s Yei County are calling for safety of students from the global pandemic.
Bingo Bokilo Francis head teacher of Yei Day Secondary school said allowing only candidate classes to resume studies will affect the running of schools especially payment of staff.
He suggested that education partners like UNICEF and UNESCO should support with payment of teacher’s salaries.
“We need to think about the safety of learners, teachers and the community. The resumption of the candidate classes will affect the payment of teachers especially in private schools”, Francis lamented.
Teacher Bingo stresses that the closure of schools has affected many students leaving others pregnant.
A parent identified as Caesar regrets that since the outbreak of corona virus learners stopped revising their books.
He believed that re-opening of schools will enable students concentrate on their studies and keep them busy for a while.
Acting director for education planning and statistic in former Yei Ministry of Education Victor Hakim Michael mentions that an assessment was conducted to ensure safe re-opening of schools.
He adds the reports shows that most schools do not have enough learning space in order to observe social distancing as a measure to prevent COVID-19.
“We have started an assessment and we found out that government schools do not have the capacity to observe all the preventive measures especially social distancing. The schools are over congested”, the director explained.
The director noted that the assessment also found that radio learning program is not effective because of lack of radio sets to follow the program.
Learning institutions were closed in March by the governments as preventive measure to contain the global corona virus.
However UN agencies UNESCO and UNICEF support the idea of safe re-opening of schools across the country.
