“A lot of work coming but sometimes I can’t explain it to she and then I have to work and when I come home in the nights I does be too tired. So when the work bank up is hard for she to do it and I don’t know if she getting anything at all. You have the workbook and work coming and coming but no teaching, sometimes I don’t know what to do,” a frustrated mother of four told me recently.
She was referring to her first grader who like many other children did not complete her nursery education before the pandemic came and closed school doors last March. Her introduction to primary education is being done virtually and for this mother, and I am sure many others, it is a struggle. The child has never seen her class teacher nor heard her voice. It is her mother and to a lesser extent her older siblings who have been assisting her navigate primary education, none of them are trained to do so.
“But sometimes I worry more about the older ones… because I don’t know if they learning anything. I leave early in the morning and yes I try and get the internet. It is hard, every month is a struggle to pay the bill. They have phones and tablets, but I don’t think they really using it for school, is whole day updating status and all kinds of things.
“Now if school did open I woulda just take away the phone and tell them focus on the book but without phone and tablet there is no school,” the woman said.
Her other three children are in Grade Six, secondary school and a tertiary institution, respectively.
“The two middle ones they have to go to the school and collect workbooks, but I don’t really know how much work they doing. The other day one a them telling me how they don’t understand the work so they can’t do it. Now I can’t help she because I didn’t go to secondary school and I can’t quarrel because I know it does be hard.
“The teacher don’t call them or nothing, no Zoom meeting, just sending the work on Whatsapp and then the workbook. Who explaining things to the children?” she asked.
“Look I know COVID deh but fuh me one one, is better school open because the children are suffering. What will happen to our children? I seeing me children suffering and I say by the time school open back they would get dunce, dunce.
“The little one she does be telling me how she hand tired and she can’t do no more work because sometimes I does have to give her four and five days work one time. How she learning? I don’t know what else to do…” she said.
I asked her how a normal day goes for her.
“I does get up like around 5:30 in the morning and prepare for work,” she said. “I try to keep morning devotion and tell the children to do them work. I does cook from the night before so that they get food. If I have credit I would check in with them during the day, but most times is when I get home after four in the afternoon I seeing them.
“Sometimes is then they scrambling to do work, but I can’t say nothing, and I just have to try and prepare for work the next day and try to push a lil work with the small one. Sometimes I getting home till six in the afternoon. So that is how the days go, six days a week. Housework still have to do, I can’t pressure the children because they say they have schoolwork. I don’t know…so when I get the one day off is then I have to get them, and we would do most of the work. So is no time leave.
“I just want them to go out to school. They need to learn. This is too much.”
I saw how frustrated she was and there was not much I could say to comfort her. Regardless of our status I am sure all parents of school-aged children are worried for their well-being since the physical closure of schools. Of course there are those who will suffer more. One just has to look at our streets daily and see the number of school-age children out there.
The Ministry of Education has to look at its data and see how many children should be in fourth and fifth forms who are missing even though school has reopened for those classes.
COVID is real and it is a pandemic that is sickening many and many are dying but the other fall outs from it are just as debilitating. Our children are indeed suffering. Apart from them not having access to proper schooling many are being abused, many are left to fend for themselves during the day regardless of their ages.
“Under these circumstances [children being out of school for months because of the pandemic] it would require superhuman interventions,” psychologist Wil Campbell said recently.
“The number of out-of-school children is set to increase by 24 million, to a level we have not seen in years and have fought so hard to overcome,” were the chilling words of UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore in a recent statement.
“Children’s ability to read, write and do basic math has suffered, and the skills they need to thrive in the 21st century economy have diminished,” she continued.
The UNICEF Executive Director also alluded to the fact that children’s health, development, safety and well-being are at risk and that the most vulnerable among them will bear the heaviest brunt.
“Without school meals, children are left hungry and their nutrition is worsening. Without daily interactions with their peers and a reduction in mobility, they are losing physical fitness and showing signs of mental distress. Without the safety net that school often provides, they are more vulnerable to abuse, child marriage and child labour,” she added.
Even with the rising COVID numbers worldwide, she called for the closing of school doors to be the last resort.
Also underscoring the debilitating effects of school closure was UNESCO which noted that school closures carry high social and economic costs for people across communities. The impact, it said, is particularly severe for the most vulnerable and marginalized boys and girls and their families. The resulting disruptions exacerbate already existing disparities within the education system but also in other aspects of their lives.
To say that Minister of Education Priya Manickchand has her task cut out for her is putting it mildly. She and her ministry may have been doing their best but unfortunately their best is simply not enough. Their best is not meeting the needs of a huge chunk of our nation’s children and we as a nation need to be worried. We have to come together collectively, especially big business entities, in an effort to ensure that more children are getting access to learning. Teachers need to be trained on how to teach virtually, sending work sheets and Whatsapp messages will not cut it.
We need to join hands and fight for our nation’s children. Wherever you can assist, even if it is just one child please do. At the end of the day, as the saying goes, they are our nation’s future and if half of them fall away then we can only have half a future and we will all suffer the consequences.
