By Staff Reporters
Grade Four, Class Eight and Form Four learners are back in school. It is a matter of when the remaining classes reopen.
During the break, reports of increased teenage pregnancies, child labour and various forms of abuse dominated national discourse.
As a result, learners will go back to class with different mindsets and perspectives and refocusing their energies on class work will not be easy task.
Kenya Parents Association chairman Nicholas Maiyo admits that learners will be faced with numerous challenges to refocus energies on studies.
“We will greatly rely on guidance and counseling to promote psychosocial welfare of learners,” he said, and appealed to the government to hire professionals do the work.
While issuing a press release on the reopening of Grade Four, Standard Eight and Form classes, Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha asked teachers to give learners the necessary psychological support.
“All teachers are encouraged to continuously provide psychosocial and spiritual support to learners and school support staff during the duration of the pandemic,” Magoha said.
But the Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association (KESSHA) National Chairman Kahi Indimuli said that even as teachers are expected to offer psychological help to students, they too need similar help.
“The Teachers Service Commission promised to employ counselors at the county level and this is the time to fast-track the policy,” Indimuli appealed.
The Machakos Boys Principal said that though schools have guidance and counseling departments with teachers playing the role of counsellors, it means a heavier workload for the teachers.
Maiyo says increased incidents of abuse of learners call for concerted efforts to stem possible school dropouts.
“It would be prudent for schools to set aside about three days to mentor, guide and counsel learners,” he said.
Seme Teachers Training College Principal Jonathan Chebogut underscored the need of professional counselors in schools.
“Having professional counselors in learning institutions is long overdue since teachers assigned the roles may be overwhelmed by the workload,” he said.
Chebogut, who has extensively written on guidance and counseling in learning institutions, said that teachers who guide and counsel learners have academic knowledge but lack the practical aspect hence the need to have professionals to update their skills through further training.
In a recent report, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), highlighted the negative effects associated with the closure of schools due to Covid-19.
“When schools shut down, early marriages increase, more children are recruited into militias, sexual exploitation of girls and young women rises,” it stated in its report.
Teenage pregnancies, the report says, become more common and child labour grows with social interaction between learners drifting far apart.
Schools, it observed, are hubs of social activity and human interaction stating that when they close, many children and youth miss out of on social contact that is essential to learning and development
“The longer they stay at home, the more they are exposed to a number of challenges,” it stated, warning that this may lead to increased cases of dropout.
Kenya Secondary Schools Heads Association, Uasin Gishu County Chairman Shadrack Ng’etich, said helping learners refocus on studies will be a tough challenge.
“We are aware of the challenges ahead of reopening of schools and call for professional guidance and counselors,” he said.
Ng’etich identified phone addiction as one of the challenges teachers will have to grapple with.
“Bringing learners back to the realm of a classroom and understand what they are expected of poses a big challenge and it is time the Commission employed professional counselors,” he said.
