After meeting with Owners of Private Schools President Chakwera announced the re-opening of the schools in his earlier weekly national address to the media.
Chakwera said his government will now be working with schools to assess how they are prepared in line with the COVID-19 preventative measures.
Primary Schools: standard 8 will open from September 2020, for a period of 6-8 weeks. Then the assessment will be made upon which if the assessment will be positive for continuation, then Standard 5 -7 will join then later 1- 4 will join when we have a stable environment.
Secondary Schools: form 4 will be in schools in September 2020, assessment will be made within 6-8 weeks thereafter, recommendations will be made for either to bring form 1-3 on board.
Colleges/Universities: exam classes will resume in September 2020. After 3 weeks’ evaluation will be made and decisions will be made to accommodate other classes from different levels. For TTC, IPTE 14 will be the priority because they have to sit for examination.
Academic Calendar: September 2020-December 2020, cover term, the new Academic year will start in January 2021
Concerns and action:
- Water- the Ministry is engaging different partners to help with boreholes
- PPE- Partners and community is engaged to support the process and provide ideas to sustain the PPEs
- Risk allowances- the ministry is looking into this issue to safeguard the lives of teachers
- Information dissemination-despite the district trainings that are happening in the districts, the ministry has also planned for C-19 guidelines orientations across Malawi.
- Sports and entertainment- NO such activities will be accommodated till the C-19 is contained
- Feeding programme: not yet decided at present two suggestions take home packages and school feeding system.
