© Laetitia Bezain / RFI
Disinfection of a classroom in a school in the capital, Antananarivo.
In Madagascar, the postponement of the start of the school year is debated. While the students of the Big Island were to return to school on January 5, the day before, the Ministry of Education announced to postpone the start of the school year to January 17 for the capital region. In question, ” the alarming upsurge in Covid-19 contaminations », He specifies in a note.
With our correspondent in Antananarivo, Like Laetitia
Six other regions were added, two days later, to the list of those who must postpone their return to public and private primary and secondary schools. Of the approximately 1,600 cases of coronavirus recorded this week, 1,100 are in the region of the capital, Analamanga.
In the garden of Antaninarenina, in the center of Antananarivo, adolescents, parents and children are taking advantage of the extension of the Christmas holidays.
« You still have to pay for school »
The authorities’ decision reassures Patricia, mother of a private school student: ” My child’s health comes first, but the problem is that you still have to pay for school when there are no lessons. “
For Miora, mother of a 10-year-old child, this umpteenth suspension of classes is worrying: ” This worries me because I have noticed that my daughter is having difficulty. She also has trouble concentrating. Whenever there is a closure of schools, we do everything to give lessons at home but that is no longer the solution. We work and when we come back, we have to take care of the house and give the lessons. We can’t follow. If school principals were allowed to apply sanitary measures in the classroom, there would be no need for closure. “
Exasperation and anguish
Distance education devices being almost non-existent, for Sandra, a high school student in second class, this new closure of establishments arouses exasperation and anguish: ” It scares me that I won’t be able to take classes at school because we’ve already been through several confinements before. There, the teachers did not transmit any lessons. They just told us to do home reviews. People no longer respect barrier gestures and it is we who still suffer the consequences. “
« Postponing the start of the school year is not a solution. The level of the pupils is already catastrophic because of the regular suspensions of the courses, these last two years “, was alarmed the coordinator of the platform of private schools, Célin Rakotomalala. This platform believes that the start of the school year might take place by putting in place appropriate health measures such as respect for barrier gestures, fewer students in class and closing of establishments when cases of coronavirus are recorded there.
This return report also concerns the regions of Vakinankaratra (center), Diana (extreme north), Haute Matsiatra (south), Atsimo Andrefana (southwest), Anosy and Atsimo Atsinanana (southwest).