By Rwamuguma Mwene Yongyera
In Outliers’ , Malcom Gladwell makes a profound observation about the difference between vacation for rich children and working class children. He argues that when schools reopen, the rich children are ahead academically while poor ones are behind. It all starts with the activities.
Poor kids are left on their own, if they want to be on the streets getting up to no good, they do. There is no supervision and encouragement to continue learning because the responsibility of learning is left to the teachers. This is why wealthier kids remain ahead of their underprivileged kids
Then the Chinese flu happened, schools were closed and education literally stopped because of overcrowding and fears of infection. The middle class kids had everything sorted, they got their tablets downloaded zoom and got acclimatized to the new normal.
Assessment continued and online exams were done so in essence there was nothing lost. The child of the peasant was the most affected, stayed home home and waited for government to bring radios and are still waiting. The girl child was the most affected, got pregnant and probably tried to secure unsafe abortions.
It is now more than ever that government should think about sex education and encourage contraception because we can hide our heads in the sand and pretend all is well but young unsupervised adolescents will likely have carnal knowledge and the parents have to deal with the consequences.
If there is one lesson covid-19 has taught us is to create a class of the ones who are on online education vis a vis those waiting for radios from the government and we expect that all those kids will grow up and find similar opportunities, we are in fact brewing a greater kifeesi and they will be robbing the tablet kids in future.
Rwamuguma Mwene Yongyera is a lawyer and commentator on social-political issues
