• Closing schools a day after voting in a General Election would not be ideal for teachers and learners.
• It would become very difficult for learners in boarding schools to travel back home immediately after an election.
• In Zambia, most teachers play a key role in the electoral process before, during and after voting.
National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) has urged the Ministry of General Education to consider changing term two school closing date from 13th to 6th August, 2021.
NAQEZ Executive Director Aaron Chansa told Money FM News that closing schools a day after the August 12 general elections would not be ideal for teachers and learners, especially pupils in boarding schools.
Mr. Chansa stated that it will be very difficult for learners in boarding schools to travel back home immediately after the elections.
He noted that teachers play a key role in the electoral process before, during and after voting, while schools are used as polling centres, thereby making them unfriendly for learning, days before and after voting.
“As an organization, we have observed that closing schools a day after voting in a general election would not be ideal for teachers and learners, especially those learners in boarding schools.”
“It is public knowledge that in Zambia, most teachers play a key role in the electoral process before, during and after voting. Equally, schools are used as polling centres, thereby making them unfriendly for learning, days before and after polling,” Mr. Chansa noted.
Meanwhile, Mr. Chansa said the organization is still waiting for the Ministry of General Education to call for a stakeholders’ indaba to deal with the nature of 2021 national examinations.
He suggested that the indaba should also deal with educational fundamentals such as the automatic progression to Grade 8, subjecting learners to too many subjects, fate of more than 60,000 unemployed teachers and other factors affecting the education sector.
“This indaba should also deal with educational fundamentals such as the infamous automatic progression to Grade 8, subjecting learners to too many subjects , relying too much on academics at the expense of vocational skills, state of Early Childhood Education (ECE) in public schools, fate of more than 60,000 unemployed teachers and the death of guidance and counseling services in schools, the state of newly upgraded secondary schools and other matters currently afflicting teachers and learners.”