Schools reopened across Kenya on Monday for the first time in almost ten months.
The Kenyan government closed schools nationwide in March, after the East African country confirmed its first COVID-19 case. The government reopened schools for students in grades 4, 8 and 12 who were preparing for the final exams. The rest – about 16 million schoolchildren – are expected to return to classrooms on Monday.
The government has asked school officials and teachers to put in place social measures, such as social guidelines and hygiene guidelines, to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
Yet amid the pandemic, teachers have expressed concern about the safety of their students and themselves. Wilson Sossion, secretary general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers, told BBC “Newsday” that the level of preparation for COVID-19 security measures before the reopening was “quite inadequate.”
“If you give such prescriptions to schools and you do not fund them,” Sossion said, “how is it expected to be implemented?
Kenya, a country of 51 million people, has reported more than 96,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, including at least 1,685 deaths, according to the latest data from the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.