MoE may do away with summer vacation for 2022: MoE

Attempt to be made to open schools before 25 April

In order to make up for the three months of lost time, the Ministry of Education (MoE) is likely to do away with the summer vacation for the 2022 academic year so that there is adequate time to cover the syllabus. MoE plans to provide contact teaching and uninterrupted education beginning 27 April 2022.

The Education Minister Jai Bir Rai said the only concern is to provide uninterrupted education for the children for the coming 2022 academic session, especially now that the nation will not have any more lockdowns.

“The schools in the country will continue with the contact teaching regardless of cases in the community,” said the Education Minister

MoE is prepared and all set go with the learning management system, COVID-19 protocols, and contact teaching-learning, and the ministry has also worked on how to manage the COVD-19 positive students in schools.

In the event where there are excessive community cases then the ministry has to resort to the online classes. Currently, teachers are being given training on how to go about with online teaching.

MoE is aware that online teaching-learning causes huge inconvenience to both the students and teachers, and there are difficulties while conducting online classes as many students still do not have the gadgets and internet facilities or internet data, the education minister added.

Lyonpo said the students who are in the boarding facilities will be much safer than the day-school students except for boarding schools in the southern regions, owing to the transmissibility of the Omicron. The students who were in the self-containment mode in the country have not reported any positive cases except for Samtse and Sarpang dzongkhags.

Meanwhile, if the National Task Force sees it safe to do so then the students relocated in Phaduna from Phuentsholing are to be sent back and start their 2022 academic year in their respective schools in Phuentsholing.

MoE works closely with the National Task Force and Ministry of Health for any changes with regard to the operation of schools during the pandemic.

While the school are supposed to be open by 25 April which is two weeks after the second dose for 5 to 11, but a government official said they are seeing if schools can be reopened on 18 April which is a week earlier.

He said they could do this by reducing the gap between the two doses from four weeks to three weeks as it is medically allowed.

The Prime Minister Dasho Dr Lotay Tshering said that the relaxation timeline can be revised to open up things earlier depending on the situation.