The national schools and colleges shutdown on March 13 last year in a bid to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic presented a unique challenge to the completion of the syllabi.
Its culmination today ends the disruption of learning to 98 per cent of students who could not adequately learn through the alternatives.
Now teachers are faced with a new challenge of completing the syllabi in time for summative evaluation at the end of academic cycles 8 and 4.
To reduce backpedalling on the gains of free primary and secondary education, respectively introduced in 2003 in 2008, and, more recently, the 100 per cent transition to secondary school, teachers must use innovative ways that are tested but context-specific since schools have different challenges.
The content in the syllabi is cyclic, rather than linear, across Standard 5-8 in primary school and Form 1-4 in secondary school. In these post-Covid-19 times, instead of the teachers giving content using the piecemeal approach, they should cover a theme at once.
Dynamic approach
This way, the learners will cover the lost time if, in addition, they are encouraged to complete tasks outside scheduled learning hours.
Teachers are also encouraged to use the dynamic approach — learning from the knowledgeable other — or simply, peer teaching and tutorials. Here, the best learner in a subject, stream or cluster is allowed to take the others through bits of the content, especially in upper primary and secondary school.
Most importantly, and radical, let teachers identify related content or themes across the curriculum and give it an interdisciplinary approach. This is successful in the International Baccalaureate (IB) system of education, which offers instructions that allow learners to develop their full potential.
Teachers must incorporate in their teaching titbits on how to stop the spread of coronavirus, provide proper information, arrest discrimination, provide facts and dispel fear and avoid stigma.
Turuthi (PhD) the deputy principal, Flamingo Secondary School, is an educational communication and technology expert. davidgitau4@gmail.com.