By Farai D Hove | As the country recorded 4 451 confirmed Covid-19 cases with 3 353 being local transmissions, government is debating when to reopen schools.

Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education, Edgar Moyo told the state owned Sunday News:

“We are presently monitoring trends particularly Covid-19 local infections, if they continue escalating as they are doing now, we will have to defer re-opening further, mainly as a means of protecting our learners and teachers.

“As a Ministry, however, we have continued readying ourselves for the eventual re-opening through the purchasing of PPEs and perfecting our modules.

“We have also been fine tuning our radio lessons and to communities that do not get radio signals we are also in the process of producing physical modules related to the radio lessons.”

On June and November exams, he said:

“For June examinations you should note that most of those writing were private candidates but for the November examinations we mainly have school candidates hence for them to be ready to sit for the exams. They need adequate learning time so that they are able to complete the syllabus. So, at the moment the only time we can talk of November examinations is when we have a set date for the re-opening of schools.”

Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) chairperson Professor Eddie Mwenje is on record as saying examinations will only be written when students have completed the syllabus and when it is safe to do so, even if it means pushing the examinations to December this year or January next year. He said Zimsec understands that there was little time for students to prepare for examinations given that schools closed in March this year.

Prof Mwenje, however, said Zimsec would not compromise the quality and substance of Zimbabwe’s education by lowering the pass mark for students to score better grades. Instead, they would ensure that the syllabus is completed before students sit for exams. Schools were closed in March and the second term was supposed to have come to an end last week. – Sunday News