Derek Achong

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has pro­posed the in­tro­duc­tion of a shift sys­tem in some schools to fa­cil­i­tate COVID-19 pro­to­cols when the new school year be­gins on Sep­tem­ber 1. 

The pro­pos­al was re­vealed in a doc­u­ment on guide­lines for the re­open­ing of schools that was pub­lished by the min­istry’s School Su­per­vi­sion and Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion, last Thurs­day. 

Stat­ing that class­rooms at sec­ondary schools had al­ready been re­or­ga­nized to fa­cil­i­tate six feet of phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing dur­ing CXC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions, which be­gan yes­ter­day, the min­istry said that such re­quire­ments may be ad­just­ed by the time schools re­open. 

It said that based on spac­ing con­straints in schools a ros­ter sys­tem would have to be im­ple­ment­ed to en­sure that all stu­dents re­ceive the same tu­ition. 

It sought to give an ex­am­ple of how the sys­tem could work in prac­tice. 

“The school cre­ates two groups in each class, group A and group B. Group A and Group B will at­tend school on al­ter­nate days. A school that has a cur­rent five-day timetable (be it a Mon­day to Fri­day or a five-day cy­cle sys­tem) will then have a 10-day cy­cle,” it stat­ed. 

It said that Group A stu­dents will at­tend school on the first day of the cy­cle, while the oth­er group par­tic­i­pates in on­line teach­ing. Group B will at­tend school on the sec­ond day with Group A stu­dents util­is­ing the same on­line teach­ing utilised by the oth­er group on the pre­vi­ous day. 

The min­istry sug­gest­ed that larg­er class­es could be split in­to ad­di­tion­al groups by in­creas­ing the length of the cy­cle ac­cord­ing­ly. 

“In cre­at­ing groups for the pur­pos­es of ro­ta­tion, each day of the timetable should be re­peat­ed to co­in­cide with the num­ber of groups,” it said. 

In the doc­u­ment, the min­istry al­so ad­mit­ted that while it aimed for 100 per cent par­tic­i­pa­tion in on­line learn­ing since schools were closed due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, it was ham­pered by con­nec­tiv­i­ty is­sues and lack of ac­cess to ICT de­vices. 

Recog­nis­ing the is­sue, the min­istry stat­ed that teach­ers should reteach ma­te­r­i­al that was cov­ered in the on­line class­es if there was less than 50 per cent par­tic­i­pa­tion by stu­dents.

It al­so stat­ed that stu­dents with­out ac­cess to such tech­nol­o­gy at home should be al­lowed to use school fa­cil­i­ties dur­ing or af­ter school. 

“On day per cy­cle should be sched­uled to stu­dents who had no ac­cess to on­line learn­ing,” it said. 

In terms of en­try re­quire­ments at schools, prin­ci­pals were ad­vised to place signs at en­trances in­di­cat­ing that there would be no en­try with­out a mask. 

Sinks are to be placed at en­trances to fa­cil­i­tate hand-wash­ing, with school of­fi­cials re­quired to test vis­i­tors’ and stu­dents’ tem­per­a­ture us­ing a hand-held in­frared ther­mome­ter.  

Schools are re­quired to keep a log of stu­dents who record a high­er than the nor­mal tem­per­a­ture on con­sec­u­tive days. 

Stu­dents who ex­hib­it flu-like symp­toms are to be placed in des­ig­nat­ed quar­an­tine rooms un­til they are picked up by the par­ents or guardians. Vis­i­tors, who present sim­i­lar symp­toms are not to be al­lowed to en­ter.  

Floor signs in­di­cat­ing prop­er so­cial dis­tanc­ing should al­so be in­stalled. 

The min­istry al­so ad­vised against tra­di­tion­al morn­ing as­sem­blies in­stead sug­gest­ing that it be done on a ro­ta­tion sys­tem with dif­fer­ent days be­ing as­signed to dif­fer­ent class­es or forms. Small­er schools were ad­vised to utilise their PA sys­tems. 

The min­istry al­so sought to en­sure prop­er san­i­ta­tion at schools as each was man­dat­ed to have 50 per cent of wa­ter stor­age ca­pac­i­ty at all times and to clean wash-room fa­cil­i­ties and class­rooms more fre­quent­ly. The min­istry iden­ti­fied bleach and wa­ter as its pre­ferred dis­in­fec­tant for san­i­ta­tion.

It al­so ad­vised that breaks in­clu­sive of the lunch break should be lagged for dif­fer­ent stu­dents to en­sure so­cial dis­tanc­ing is main­tained in the cafe­te­ria and oth­er com­mon ar­eas. 

Stu­dents were still ad­vised that they should walk with their per­son­al sup­ply of hand sani­tis­er or hand soap. 

The min­istry not­ed that stu­dents should wear their masks even when cough­ing or sneez­ing and that rags are pro­hib­it­ed. 

“Stu­dents should be dis­cour­aged from shar­ing food and drink, books, sta­tionery, and oth­er per­son­al items,” it said.