The long absence from school will have a negative impact on learners, including stalling their progression when learning resumes next year, according to education experts.
Learners in all basic education institutions have already stayed out of classrooms for four months and are not expected to go back until January.
Those in colleges and universities will resume in September if the institutions satisfy the government that they have complied with set requirements.
“There will be great learning loss and we need to take cognisance of this when the schools open,” said Dr Sara Ruto, the chairperson of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development.
She told the Nation that the learners who will be the worst hit by the learning loss are those in emergent stages at every level of the education cycle. These include those beginning school, in Grade Four, Form One and First Year students at colleges and universities.
“Chances of learners in emergent stages lapsing back are very high. The children who had just started to learn numeracy, for example, and were still training their eyes on how the letters are formed and the sounds that they represent have had that progression interrupted.”
Dr John Mugo, the executive director of Zizi Afrique, an organisation that is involved in education research, concurs that as a result of the learning loss, foundational skills might have to be restarted for proper progression.
He said parents and teachers need to be prepared to deal with the emotional effect learners might suffer as a result of having to repeat classes and the attendant stigma.
“There is anxiety among the candidates as they feel uncertain of the future and loss of momentum they had gained. They will be afraid of forgetting what they’d learned and failure.”
According to Dr Ruto, policy makers and teachers would make “the biggest mistake” if they fail to assess the learners to determine how much will have been lost by the time they go back to class.
“We should use this opportunity to retool teachers to assess their learners. We need to delink ourselves from thinking about grade-level achievement and focus on individual learners.”
Dr Ruto, who is also the CEO of PAL Network, said individualised learning will be more critical next year.
She said only 30 per cent of learners are usually where the curriculum prescribes they should be. This will be further brought down by the absence.
“The younger learners are dropping six per cent of their cognitive skills performance for every week of school lost. The older ones may lose about one per cent. The experiences of learners will be varied based on what they are going through at home. Those learning remotely are developing their self-regulated learning and digital literacy skills,” said Dr Maina Gioko, a teacher at Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa.
Veteran educationist and researcher, Dr Anna P. Obura, told the Nation that “more energy and attention needs to be spent on what to do now. Children are getting bored, everywhere. Children privileged to have had schooling online are getting very tired of it.”
She suggested that parents find activities to keep learners stimulated cognitively, physically and socially “through games of all sorts, books and the exploration of new ideas, stories, films, news, discussions, the internet, music, song, dance and interaction with their peers and slightly older children”.
