This is why CS Magoha has called for an emergency meeting

Education CS George Magoha has convened an emergency meeting to discuss the new school reopening dates and how to make the calendar work Kenyans.co.ke has reported. 

Top on the agenda will be how to recover the lost academic year and how to have the normal school calendar resume by 2023.

According to Education CAS Zack Kinuthia, one of the proposed plans includes shortening the school terms.

“Among the proposals we may consider is to compress the second and third terms to ensure that this years’ school calendar ends by June 2021. We are going to rework the school calendar together with education stakeholders and the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD),” he explained.

“The idea is to have 2020, 2021, and 2022 school calendars covered within a short time and have the normal school calendar resume by January 2023,” he added.

The CAS further revealed that delaying the admission of new Form 1 students until July 2021 was among the proposals under consideration.

On his part, Education CS George Magoha revealed that students would resume second term when schools reopen in January 5.

Under the new proposal, each term will now run for two and a half months, with one or two-week breaks to accommodate four instead of three terms next year.

“The national examinations timetable will also be reviewed and made public soon,” CS Magoha stated.

According to the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Secretary General Akeko Misori, the biggest challenge was how secondary schools would accommodate an estimated 1 million Form 1 students in schools, and how teachers would go about teaching them.

“The biggest issue is how to compress the next academic year for learners to cover this year’s syllabus within a limited time frame,” he elaborated.

It was further highlighted that the community learning proposal that was quashed by the courts would have proven most beneficial for learners during the Covid-19 restriction period.