Preparation for resumption of schools |12 May 2020
Dr De Comarmond (Photo: Thomas Meriton)
All primary and secondary state schools to operate from 8.40am to 2.30pm
- As from May 18 new arrangements will be made to transport post-secondary students
After the lifting of restrictions of movement, schools are getting ready to re-open their doors. Post-secondary schools and private schools are already open and as from Monday next week all public schools, primary and secondary, will open their doors with new operational hours from 8.40am to 2.30 pm.
The School for the Exceptional Child however will resume one week later.
The chief executive of the Seychelles Public Transport Corporation (SPTC), Patrick Vel, the principal secretary for Early Childhood, Primary and Secondary Education, Dr Odile de Comarmond, and the principal secretary for Land Transport, Patrick Andre, met the press yesterday to give more details.
More buses to transfer students
Mr Vel informed the public that “SPTC has been working very closely with the Ministry of Education and today we can confirm that we have finalised an arrangement where we can still support the primary and secondary students to get back to school as from May 18, 2020. The change in time will actually allow us to transfer the students to their destination while maintaining social distancing. We drew a specific time table for all pick up points which will be distributed to all schools and teachers. The first pick up time stays the same and this will allow some buses to do a second round. We also urge all the students and parents to make sure their child is on time”.
Since May 4, SPTC had to call back all its functional buses in order to serve the public as they lost 50% of their seating capacity. “Between 7am and 8.15am we will not have additional buses to support the public in general. We are asking the public who are not going to work, to choose another time to travel and give priority to the working travellers and students,” noted Mr Vel.
Mr Andre noted that there are negotiations with the omnibus association. “SPTC will continue to provide their service to the public and to primary and secondary students. As from May 18, SPTC will not be able to sustain its service to post-secondary students. We are already in negotiation with private bus owners to come and assist whenever the needs arise. We are currently working on that and after confirmation we will inform the public about the procedures.”
New school calendar and new arrangements at school
Dr De Comarmond noted that since the approval from the cabinet to change the school calendar, it is the first time that the ministry is unveiling its action plan. “Since we closed the schools, we have lost 23 days in contact time. We discussed with our head teachers and we agreed to take two weeks from the August holidays which will cover ten days we lost and we also remove the half-term scheduled for June 19. In total we will be recuperating 11 days out of the 23 days. We expect that the schools will make arrangements with the teachers and students to catch up on the missing lessons. We also count the homework that have been given to the students during the time off at home and also on television. We expect that the teachers will do a revision of the lessons.”
Regarding the bus arrangement, PS De Comarmond explained that the logic of having schools starting later will give the necessary time to get all the students on time. “All schools will start at 8.40am instead of 7.40am and will finish at 2.30pm. Teachers will be at schools at 7.30am as usual and this will allow us to do the daily screening as advised by the department of health. In all schools there will be a health worker who will help in carrying out this activity, which is here to stay until further notice.”
All primary schools have been asked to rearrange their break and lunch times so that the students can be separated in groups to avoid crowd.
New normal with challenges
“We do have challenges and we do not expect that on Monday everything will be perfect. In small schools, most of them will be able to cope with social distancing. But our main challenge remains the big schools where they do not have enough empty rooms. We came with different strategies and all schools with their management teams have been working on how to reallocate the students in the different streams. That does not mean that the students are being demoted. All classes have been put together after careful analysis of their capacity. When we break the classes, this require additional staff.”
Another big challenge noted in the schools is the reinforcement of hygiene. “We are putting sanitisers in the classrooms and we had two sessions with the cleaning agencies. They will have to beef up their teams so that they can deliver the level of cleaning expected and this will of course come with a budget.”
PS De Comarmond also noted that the School for the Exceptional Child will resume one week later on account of some more arrangements to be made.
The Ministry of Education is urging the parents to make sure that the students do not miss their school bus as it will be difficult for them to get to school. All students are asked to also carry a small towel to wipe their hands and all schools have to be equipped with an isolation room and they have to follow strictly the guidance given by the department of health.
“It is a new normal and we do not say that everything will be perfect. We will monitor the first week and adjust as needs require,” the PS added.
