 Good morning and thank you for tuning in to Y254 TV, why in the morning is this show, my name is Dereva Hillary, thank you so much for being a part of us. Now the public has been given one week to respond to whether the student should be going back to school or they shouldn't. I'm speaking to Job Mogira, he's a researcher and we want to know is it okay to go back to school right now or we'll be competing with other nations and what happens if we go back to school right now. Good morning. Good morning Hillary, how are you? I'm very well, how have you been? All right now, should we be going back to school at such a time? At such a time? No. Eventually? Yes. And the reason I'm saying this is, first of all, ask ourselves a few questions, I like what the CS has done to let Kenyans express their views. And so the first question should be, why did we close our schools? Now if we have five reasons why we closed our schools, have we addressed those reasons so that now we think of reopening the schools? If we have addressed according to the ministry which issue the directive to close the schools, then it's okay, we reopen schools. Now if we have not addressed the reasons as to why we closed schools, then we should not think of reopening schools. Because you see there are so many factors schools, if you remember and I am not saying that there are some less essential services, when the devolution act was being passed and such or the system of devolution was being designed in Kenya, we didn't devote education because we thought or because it actually is a very big sector in this country. So anything to go with the opening of schools, resuming studies and such is not the right thing to do right now. When I decided to do a little research from my own circles about these reopening schools and that's why I have my phone today because I don't want to speak from the blues, I don't want to do any guesswork. I want to let the youth and especially those maybe youthful parents hear what their fellow youthful parents are saying about reopening schools. I talked to around 70 people. Wow, that's a good number. Yeah, using my fellow Kenyans. Yeah, fellow Kenyans I talked to over 70 fellow Kenyans. Out of the 70, 67 are of the opinion we should not reopen schools. 3 of them in which I like their perspectives are of the opinion we open schools, but they have given several conditions which we should discuss of course at some point. And the reason why number one, I'm saying that we should not reopen schools. What was a very simple question. Can you say? We can't reopen schools. We want to experiment with our kids who you know even one of my friends says I've been trying to control 10 kids in the flats where I stay. It's difficult. Even telling my own kids not to move out is a bit difficult. How will the teachers control social distancing? Yeah, the physical distance and the social distance. How will the teachers handle that? Remember here we are talking about you know I hear there was a mass recruitment of teachers in 1989 and 1990 when the curriculum changed from whatever it was to 844. Right. Now those teachers are retiring this year, some retired last year and others will retire next year. So you are talking about a big percentage of teachers who are over 50 years. Now we want to expose them because they are teachers and yet in other sectors we are saying if you are over 50 do not come to work. The government has said that work from home except for senior officials but even for those senior officials if you are over 60 of course with the exception of politicians, politicians do not retire work from home. Right. When we want the teachers to work from school yet most of them, not most but several of them are over 50 years. And very vulnerable. We are risking their lives. Will we afford to give them a held allowance or maybe a held risk allowance? Right. We will not be at that position. No, they keep themselves. Some parents do not have an HIV. Then you wachili wa toto wa hende shule. This is a topic that is close to so many people. And even what I have seen from the small research I did, some parents are categorical. When we reopen schools, my kids are not going. Let others go. Then I will decide whether my kid is going. I know the reason I am saying the topic is dear to so many parents. Even my own daughter. I came to hende shule after 2 months in Kaisa. Now she doesn't understand the condition. She was asking me to hende shule. I know she is watching. So I will tell her later why we had to close schools and why the schools cannot be reopened at this point. But eventually we will have to reopen schools. But currently we are not ready. And the reason I am insisting we are not ready is I believe the many reasons that made us close schools. I have not been addressed. Are we at a position to contain coronavirus as a country? If not, then we should not experiment with our kids. Saitas, thank you so much for joining us. Apparently we need to begin without you. But we haven't moved so far. Saitas Ruto's task force has given the public one week to respond to whether we should be reopening our schools or not. There are so many things to put into consideration as far as COVID-19 is concerned. We remember in March 12th when the first case was reported. On the 17th the schools were closed. The pupils and the students have been back home learning from home. Of which there has been questions on how will we test them come the end of the year as our norm during the exams. These people, not everyone can access education or the platform that has been given by the government through the TV and the radio and other smartphones for the sake of the well of families. But now we are asking if we reopened our schools today. Are we competing with maybe the dollar nations and everybody in a good state to reopen our schools at such a time? Thank you and sorry for being late. If we say we are competing with the dollar nations then we shall be making a full of ourselves. Because most of the dollar nations have not opened the schools. They are still at home. Even you saw the other days only Bundesliga that started. Maybe they have put their mechanisms in place to manage the players. Now the government on one side has always failed and I will keep on saying that. When there was free education they allowed pupils and students to go to school without considering the infrastructure. A school that a class that should hold 25 pupils per teacher is holding 90 pupils per teacher. In such an environment we don't need to open schools at the moment. Because one our infrastructure is very poor. Looking at the classes, the congestion of classes and how this thing called COVID-19 spreads. It won't allow so it will be a risk to our pupils. And then a risk to our pupils is a risk to a parent. Because one you don't know where this child is coming from. Then you don't know what infection this child may carry back home to school. So this is a very risky thing that we should not even think about at the moment. For private schools we can say they are a bit far much better than the public schools. So for private schools maybe we can look at it in one or the other. But for public schools it is a risk that we are trying to create for our own children and our own sick. Because now if the disease spreads the way it's spreading. Then with regards to the congestion that is always in our public schools then it's a mess. Now when we come back to the examinations I don't know why is it that we should force our students and our pupils to do the exams. Yet they are not in school. There is no pupil or student who is learning at home right now. Let us just be realistic because everybody's mind has switched off. For the first two weeks after the closure of schools everybody was in the books. But right now the mind has switched off. I would like to cut you short. Hold on to that thought. We take a very quick short break and then we'll be back. Keep it UI254 in the morning. Thank you for keeping us company. We are talking about the reopening of schools. Of course we need your opinion in regards to how do you feel about reopening the schools. There has been a task for us being put in place to look into the views of Kenyans and the public. In one next time we will know whether the public agrees to schools being reopened or not. And that's the discussion we're having here this morning. We are talking about the political analyst Silas Litua and research analyst Djob Mugira. Thank you so much. Before we went on that break Silas you were saying our schools are overpopulated. That's a big concern. It has been there over time. You have said the private schools could be better off. But of course remember these are people and you do not know where they are coming from or what they will go back home with. Now other than the numbers what would be another problem? Another problem that we have is that the teacher student ratio or the teacher pupil ratio that's one of the problems that we have. And then when you look at the teacher pupil ratio to public schools doesn't match. Population is high from the pupils. The teachers are just a number. A very little number of teachers that we have in the schools. Now the minister of education or the government in the other words has not invested much on education. And this is where we have a bigger problem because if the government could have invested much in these teachers then we could not be having a problem. Then another issue is when we talk of infrastructure we have like an area where we have only two public schools. Those are primary schools. Let me say an area like look at Kassarani constituency. I've only seen two public schools. These are primary schools. One down Miki. It's a Dominic primary school. Then another one at Kassarani primary. There are only two public schools. There are only three actually. Look at such an area. And the population within that area is bigger. So what do we need to do in such instances? These are some of the things that the government should address both the county government and the national government. Remember we have monies that are always given out to the national government. You talk of CDF that is supposed to cater for such things. Talk of the county government. They also take part in education. So these are some of the things that we need to sit down and look into. How are we going to manage these things? What if this situation may repeat itself some years to come? Are we going to handle this situation the same way? And remember our population always is growing. It is not that it is reducing. It is always growing. Okay, double. When we will go to census 2019, the population will have doubled. Remember the population we had in 2009? We had around 35 million people. Right now we have 50 million people. Come 2019 we will be having almost 65 million people. So this is some of the things that we need to sit down and look into. So how are we going to manage these situations? There has been a concern over the teachers who will be handling our kids. Of course the number of the population is one of the factors. But look at these teachers who will be handling the people and the students at the end of the day. How are we ensuring they are safe or they have protected themselves? We are using masks out here for the sake of our medical health workers. We are having them having PPEs. How about the teachers? If they are going to have our students in school, how should they be? Well, I think on protecting our teachers, the teacher needs to be protected in the same way as the nurse. Because at the point we are allowing students to go back to school, we do not know whether they have the virus or they do not have. Just like the way we are protecting ourselves on the streets, the teachers should be protected. I want to pose a very simple question. The government said they are distributing masks. The government said they are distributing sanitizers. How many ordinary Kenyans? Sairaz, wa wu me pata sanitizer asetani? We are talking about giving all the teachers in this country sanitizers. We are talking about giving these teachers personal protective equipment, which is not even enough for the nurses. So, do we give priority to the nurses or to the teachers? Which means again now we should not allow these teachers to go back to school. Look here, these teachers will have an additional JD, which I believe is a bit difficult. If you want the students to remain safe in schools, we need a teacher to be standing somewhere, one teacher maybe at the gate, to ensure that all the kids sanitize. We need another teacher to be in the classroom to ensure that all the students observe the physical distance. And again, we need another teacher during the break time to ensure that all the students observe the social distance. No playing. We need another teacher to ensure that whenever a kid goes to the washrooms, the kid uses the washrooms, then someone comes, sanitizes and washes that place before the next kid uses that washroom. So if you have 50 kids in school and each kid is taking 3 minutes in the washrooms, then the washing and disinfection takes 2 minutes, that is 5 minutes per kid, you will need to 50 minutes to allow this compared to before the virus when 3, 4, 5 boys could line up and sort themselves out. Then another thing is where I want to differ slightly with my friend Cyrus on private schools. Private schools are economic entities. They are there to make profit. I believe and I agree with you, most of them in fact have the infrastructure. But now the critical infrastructure they will miss again is the teachers because I know probably what you are thinking is maybe they could tell their class 8, you can share block A and block B so that you observe the social distance. Remember now if you put 50 students in 3 classes, we will need 3 teachers. This is an investor who has employed one teacher to take care of 50 students. Now you need 3 teachers to take care of the 50 students. You are not increasing school fees. So you see the teachers again will become a big mess like affording the teachers will be difficult for these people. Then if you look at the political arena, the development arena, teachers always feel they are discriminating on so many issues. You will hear a teacher arguing which is a debatable that we teach pilots, we teach doctors but these people go and ask even engineers, higher than us. Now again as I said you've told engineers to work from home. Pilots are sleeping at home because the flights have been cancelled. Actually I saw a meme I saw a meme saying B, Humbu the pilots are home now I want to do this I saw a meme saying B, Humbu here Rudy Jones atafuza pilots amad pilots to be we hardly the pilots are now relaxing or not relaxing at home because no one is relaxing but the pilots are at home they are staying home Ile kazi kwa kutunza mtoto moza is a lot of work Before we tell the teachers to go back to class I believe since the free primary education we are not able to match the number of teachers to the number of students currently we are not able again to match even with the free secondary education we are not able to match the numbers so do we want to kill our teachers personally and even from so many opinions I got from my small survey no one wants teachers to be back in school Right Okay Sayedas there is another issue of time in regards to the exam time now if the students or if the schools are reopened today would the learners be subjected because of time as in so much workload or trying to cover the syllabus because the exam will cover what they have learnt so far but if they go back today do you think they will be subjected to more learning and homework and you know I'm sure you are in school sometimes and you know how it becomes sometimes when it comes to homework Talking to backlog of students and pupils who are supposed to sit for examination my question I keep on asking is why do we have to hurry them do the exam what for one where are they going to go after that will this exam be credible okay will it be under pressure are we going to put subject these pupils and students on pressure just to do the exam for the sake of compliance okay no what we should do is let us sit down ourselves have a dialogue with the stakeholders okay what do we need to do exam comes syllabus has to be covered and remember our exams are never set in Kenya they are always set in I think Britain okay so whatever the exam setting continue okay the UK based whatever let's keep on setting the exam continue setting the exam okay so we don't set the exam the exam is not set in Kenya it is set outside the country okay in the UK so why do we have to pile pressure on our pupils to do the exam yet we can sit down look at the situation after we've managed the situation then we can say this now how we are going to handle our students okay as my brother said we need a lot the government said it's going to distribute them it has not done so we've seen some other things the county government has placed in stages for sanitizing these things even lack water leave alone even the mask and sanitizers the county government of Nairobi the Nairobians don't have water even touch the hands the pipes are dry the taps are dry the same thing could maybe escalate to even our schools yes we don't have water so if you are telling us to take students back to school what are they going to use for water okay because this water is very essential washing hands and doing other things this is very essential even in drinking so if our homes don't have water will our schools have water where are we going to get this water from so this is something that we need to look into even the police officers who are also managing us they don't have these facilities okay they need to buy them so the government has need to step up on how to protect its own people because these are the people who pay taxes these are the people who make the economy grow and without these people then the economy of this country will not go anywhere we won't grow all right job I would like you to respond to the same and then there's an issue of most of the people went home with an unpaid leave others lost their jobs they do not know where they will begin come the end of 19 school fee we have parents who will be burdened by the school fee and this parent what they would have saved for the school fee is what they are eating now what will happen I think that one is as simple as ABCD and if the government really cares let it open the restaurants so that people can go work in the restaurants get their pay then pay school fees then pay the boundaries so that people and of course when I say let it open restaurants and boundaries I don't mean we ignore the conditions I mean like the priorities so when we open the boundaries the cessation deal so that people who are farmers in Kinangop can still go to Kinangop and farm those who are farming in Morana can still go there those who used to get Mira from Meru can still go get their Mira those who used to work we conductors drivers in those long distance tracks and other transport vehicles first of all should resume we should resume normalcy when I say that I don't like saying normalcy because nothing will be normal after corona what I mean is we should resume our businesses first we open every churches if we want because some people eat from the church faster church admins watchmen who guard the churches all of them eat from churches and so many other like churches hire so many other things from other business and service providers so once the economy sets to resume and to run then we know now myself I go back to my hustle raise money then I go and pay school fees but if you tell me now to pay school fees before you allow me to go back to my hustle what does that mean remember schools need resources to to run and the government sometimes you know when I was a child he gave me money for the second time he gave me money he gave me free education he gave me free education free education sector then the government used that money now to fight corona virus first and when they are done fighting corona virus maybe the money for the next for the next time we used to fund education because again as I said eventually we will have to open schools WHO said these virus is here to stay and even the influence of the spanish flow of 1918 is still in the country and it's still in the world and we've known and we've learned how to cope with it so we also need to see how we will cope with the corona virus and at that point it means eventually we will have to open schools but priority number one it's not opening schools at this point I want to look into what saying about government saving and using them funds that was supposed to be in schools one these schools have been struggling with this school fees the government has not have money even to take to these schools to fund these schools for education the government itself has been giving money by the World Health Organization to manage this crisis IMF has given out millions of money 78 79 billion to the country so where all this money is going one you had which means they are not even getting whatever they are supposed to get because they are working an extra remember other health services are not being catered for right now everything is corona corona these other health services people with diabetes people with other health problems are not being looked into are not being catered for so this is another problem that you are looking at so the money that you have been given by the World Health Organization and World Bank these are money that are supposed to ensure that the health systems in this country are well are well managed are well equipped very soon you will hear we don't have medicine in our hospitals we don't have enough personnel in our hospitals so if we cannot work with these two things to ensure that there are enough health services enough health personnel in our hospitals then we are heading to a problem which we should manage ourselves and it is up to ask it is our task we people we need to come up we need rise and question everything that the government spends because if we don't question everything that the government spends then the mandazis and the tis that they sit down to spend millions on them and you won't question they'll come and tell you oh taxes, taxes then another thing when we talk I support my brother when he said things should resume but under management when you talk of reducing the taxes fine if you reduce the taxes but remember if you reduce the taxes to people who are not going to pay the taxes because there is no income 10 people who earn 25,000 and one person who earns 100,000 so when this stop earning the 25,000 where you going to get the taxes from the 100,000 won't be able to manage the economy of this country so this is something that we need to sit down and look into we are talking of getting positions in government and these political positions but you are not looking at how you are going to drive our economy from these small scale workers these are some of the things that we need to sit down and look into how you are going to drive the economy from the SMEs how you are going to drive the economy from these person who works from our hotel who earns a thousand bob how you are going to make our economy driver from this mamamboga who sells smoga so that we are able to collect the turn of attacks from him or from her so these are some of the things that we need to sit down and look into not only just come and tell people we are already in a problem a very big problem that we need to manage now we are running out of time now if schools will be reopened any time from now some of the institutions are being used as isolation centers if these students of course I know they will be fumigated and everything will be said about the readiness of the students occupying the classes but how sure are we students and people when they learn the school was an isolation center how will be their reaction the other thing is in case of a student who is said to have gotten coronavirus how is the management going to deal with the mental wellness of stigmatization from these students because if small things make these people cry cry all day they will always complain others will fear going to school they have been mocked how are we prepared to take care of our mental wellness of our kids when they go back to school yes Hila I think if we really mean to contain coronavirus for COVID-19 many things having the police now is a problem no no we don't know so to kakati kaha lingumu and we need to soba rap first cab down and then restart maybe from where we will have reached Sairaz Job has mentioned something to do with panic and he has quoted that alliance now if such a thing happened let me go to a primary because this is where we have a big number of people in a class per table in my time I don't know whether things have changed we used to surround a table sitting on a bench from this side and this side now if one kid starts to sneeze I'm sure every other person who starts sneezing start crying and they will cause chaos in that school how prepared should be the management or this is another thing we should say no going back to school until this is another thing that we need to sit down and look into because one we are going to have when schools reopen right now we are going to have school unrest burning of schools destroying of properties in schools we are going to see it as like a routine because one this student is going back to school to fill the syllabus and to sit for the exam so this person is under pressure and to run away from this pressure let us strike let us cause trouble in schools so that we are sent back home these are some of the things that we are going to see them happening so the government or the ministry should be very cautious when it talks about jumping over schools and as I said earlier these people have been at home for the first two weeks of the closure they were busy in books but right now there is no person who is in the book what are you reading what are you reading because one you also need a guidance from your teacher and this is where the digital platform could have helped us in one way or the other the laptops and whatever they say they want to bring to school if they could have done it then this we could have managed our situation because in our country let me say in Africa we do we read to pass exams that is one we read so that we go to school so that we are able to go to the next level because if I fail I cannot go to the next level then I am called a stupid person so these are some of the things that we need to look into how are we going to change our education system I was looking at the CBC thing and trying to compare it to the past there is no difference to just the same things because if these things are well managed then we shall move in the best way but if coronavirus is going to be managed the way CBC has been managed then we are going to lose it alright job your final comment well my final comment is an alive kid is better an alive and schooled kid is better means a lot than a dead educated kid we should not be so much into exams we should not be so much into educating our children because dead people do not learn again I would like to encourage the government and the Sarah Ruto committee to come up with measures to reopen schools but not now let's take enough time we think about mass testing improving the infrastructure in our schools we think about maybe learning in shifts getting PPEs for the children and the teachers then benchmarking now we have to benchmark online Australia, France, Denmark have tried and then finally Kenyans the opinions we have about reopening schools we have up to until 22nd of this month we need our views let Kenyans come up and submit their views to seeongekwa social media so let's each one of us support so that at the end of the day we will have contributed to the debate and the opening of schools eventually all of us to me I think the kafu thing it was a good idea and I think if I compare the rate in which we get information let me say the cases in the US are like 2 million and the cases or something like above the cases in Kenya are like 800 what if the kafu could have been used to test people from door to door these are some of the things then you could have gotten good information that you could help us even in coming up with the reopening of schools because you could have known this area is the worst area even in Nairobiia we can tell this is the worst area but we see it is just coming out generally so by generalization of things it makes people even not think correctly so they could have used kafu in ensuring that when everybody is at home let the doctors go door to door let them they could have used the resources that they were given to ensure that these doctors we have doctors we have nurses and those ones who are in school doing research they could have taken all these people to ensure that they go door to door so that we get credible information because the information you have right now is not credible we cannot rely on it my friend said an educated person who is alive is better than a dead person who is educated the same goes to a dead a live dog is better than a dead live alright thank you so much gentlemen for coming and sharing your views on whether we should be reopening this schools or not so from what I'm gathering from here we are not 3D as a nation to reopen our schools we are not we are against the job mogeera research analyst and political analyst will be coming up in a few minutes with an interview to demystify whether nicotine will help the world health organization refuting the claims that nicotine would help and of course you know the problems that are attached to tobacco smoking or any form of taking tobacco keep it Y254 my name is Dereva Hillavi good morning