Radio episode: Schools under COVID-19

Pal-Think for Strategic Studies organised a radio episode titled “Schools under corona”, within the project “Gaza confronting corona”, implemented by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies with support from the Atlas Network. The guest was Dr Nasser al-Yafawi (educational inspector at the directorate of education), who spoke on the following axes:

• Corona and the new e-learning plan.
• The extent of students' responsiveness to the electronic system in the educational process.
• The education directorates' plans to ensure a better educational process under the pandemic.
• The return of schools and prevention measures.

Recommendations:

During our dialogue we discussed the repercussions of the corona pandemic on education in the Gaza Strip's schools — especially after the educational process stopped last March, then recently resumed, then stopped again, and e-learning began: the distance learning the ministry of education decided to adopt according to a previously prepared vision and plan, taking account of the economic circumstances of students and their families. During the episode Dr Nasser said it was taken into consideration that there are mothers who cannot handle the internet, and the marginalised areas unreached by internet services were taken into account; there was discussion of whether students and teachers were ready to handle e-learning or not.

The ministry of education began giving its teachers training courses on e-learning. The guest noted that several problems beset education, in addition to the economic situation, the electricity problem, and the weakness of internet networks or their outage during power cuts; the situation of the governorates whose education directorates lie inside the red zones was also discussed.

Consideration was given to the situation of students who live in red zones while their schools are not in red zones, and how a plan was drawn up for them to follow their educational course like their classmates. The ministry decided the return of students to secondary schools and then primary schools — the decision to reopen the schools coming after an interruption of more than five months to the educational process. Our recommendations: spread the culture of safety and prevention measures, alongside spreading e-learning according to a previously prepared plan, and equip the educational structure — its cadres and its students — for distance learning.