With the reopening of nursery and lower primary schools across the country, over 219,000 continuing and new pupils resumed classes in Northern Province. The reopening ends a 10-month school closure, which started in mid-March last year when Rwanda recorded the first case of coronavirus. We remind everyone concerned – teachers, parents, grassroots leaders and youth volunteers – to be observant of the guidelines put in place to control Covid-19, said Jean-Marie Vianney Gatabazi, Governor of Northern Province. “New classrooms have been built, and there are facilities for handwashing. Therefore, we ask school authorities to ensure that the pupils wash hands, wear masks properly and practice social distancing.” While schools reopened in all four provinces, the Ministry of Education has ordered all nursery, primary and secondary schools in Kigali to close, starting on Monday, in order to control a surge Covid-19 cases in the capital. The measures in Kigali will last at least two weeks. This, according to Gatabazi, should serve as a warning to teachers and parents that other schools might have to be closed they fail to protect the children. Parents said they will do what it takes to make sure the children are safe from the disease. “We are happy that at last our children are back at school. It is our duty to pay attention to how they wear masks because we don’t want schools to close again,” said Protogene Niyosibo, parent of two school-going children. In this province, 3,205 new classrooms have been built in the five districts. They were completed at the cost of Rwf16.5 billion, according to local authorities. These are part of the 22,000 classrooms to be built countrywide to reduce overcrowding in schools. “We have 12 new classrooms in addition to the 12 we had before. We are ready to ensure that the guidelines to prevent Covid-19 are respected, especially social distancing. There are hand-washing facilities as well,” said Ildephonse Bwanakweli, headteacher at Bukane Primary School, which has 1000 pupils. “We also have encouraged our teachers to take five minutes to talk about the prevention of the disease before starting lessons,” Bwanakweli added. Reopening pre-primary and lower primary schools is the last in the gradual process, adopted by the Ministry of Education that started late last year. Students in upper primary, secondary, TVET schools and higher learning institutions have been studying since October.
