31 Dec 2021
Charlene Thabisile Mguni
President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa has deferred indefinitely the 2022 school calendar until further notice.
In a bid to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, the opening of the schools has been postponed because new Omicron variant is highly transimmisible and schools are said to be super spreader events.
The President said that only examination classes will continue with the scheduled timetable, however the general school calendar will be delayed.
“With the exemption of examination classes which resume classes as announced by the responsible ministry, the general school calendar is hereby delayed until further notice.
Examination classes exempt from this delay are, however expected to strictly comply with preventive public health measures”, said ED Mnangagwa
The Omicron variant is highly mutative and transmit the virus at a very fast pace, in France is it said to infect at least 2 people per every two seconds.
Coming back home, in the last 3 days, Zimbabwe has recorded at least 30 deaths daily and over a thousand infection cases everyday.
All in all, the pandemic has had a negative impact in the academics calender since it was first detected in March 2020.
The School Calender has not been the same since, going through adjustments because Covid-19 induced lock downs. Normally the calender has three terms per year, but ever since the coronavirus pandemic, haphazardness has been the order of the day.
Even when school attendance was announced, pupils have had to attend class every other day. The online as radio lessons have not produced a sly good results and was highly critisized.
The 2022 calender was set to have a normal three terms as was announced by The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education(MOPSE).
The schools were supposed to open in 10 days time.
In the same announcement made, the President said that level 2 was extended with an additional 2 weeks.