Surviving Schools’ Closure... a new challenge to face!!

Wrapping up the second semester of 2020 with many questions rising about the future of education after Covid-19 pandemic spread.

While our schools were excited to embark the second semester with lots of educational plans and activities, the educational process had faced an abrupt end due to the coronavirus rapid outbreak. However, schools were working diligently to utilize the resources in the best way, since benefiting from their experience in the first semester the schools were more oriented in the 2nd semester to know what exactly need to be done to be more productive and improve the educational level of the children’s engagement.

The needs were slightly varying from one school to another but the majority were in the intention of developing the teaching aids to raise the learning performance and create a child-friendly environment for their students to encourage them thrive in all aspects.

What all the schools have agreed on, was that in this difficult time, we cannot ignore the reality of schools' shut downs and their impact on the children, Mrs. Zepure Ekmekjian, the head-mistress of Al-Sharek school talked about the upcoming challenge: “due to the coronavirus our plans for the school year were interrupted, the problem is that six months break is a very long time specially for younger students, who are in the founding phase of learning.” she added, “next year we will face an additional challenge of covering the educational gap created by this situation. It is a relief to have the tools and devices we need to concentrate our efforts on helping students to be the best they can be”.

In fact, this is a common concern among teachers, Mrs. Marella Fannoun, the kindergarten supervisor at Al-Woroud school, expressed her opinion on the matter: ”at this age kids are learning the letters and setting important foundations for upcoming years, we hope the package they received help them maintain the knowledge they acquainted through summer, and motivate the children to read more, draw and intellectually grow while they are away from school”.

Because of this program every school was able to compensate what was lacking because of the economic crisis, whether it was visual aids or computers or intellectual games, the teachers deeply appreciated this kind of generous support, it strengthened their determination to keep going, specially that new challenges rise ahead after the spread of coronavirus pandemic, and the additional dereliction created due to school closure.