By Staff Reporter
Schools have today opened after one week of being on holiday.
Term one ended on April 26, 2024 having opened in the latter part of February, 2024 following a prolonged closure of schools due to the Cholera outbreak which the country experienced.
After Education minister Douglas Syakalima announced that term one holiday will only last for a week, various stakeholders expressed concern that the holiday was too short and would stress learners and parents financially.
National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) appealed to Syakalima to extend term one holiday from one week to two weeks.
NAQEZ executive director Aaron Chansa stated that after meticulously scrutinising the 2024 academic calendar and fully grasping the dire economic, social and academic repercussions of a mere one-week holiday, NAQEZ fervently appealed to the Minister of Education to extend the 2024 Term one holiday from one week to two weeks.
Chansa stated that a solitary one-week holiday would subject parents with children in boarding schools to untold financial pressure, while learners would suffer from heightened social and emotional strain as a result of relentless back-to-back travel commitments.
“A break for only a week will not enable teachers and the learners to rejuvenate both psychologically and physically, thus compromising their readiness for Term Two, with inevitable deleterious academic consequences for the entire education sector. The one-week holiday will have telling academic outcomes for the sector,” Chansa stated.
He stated that since the August holiday had four weeks, adjusting the holiday for Term One from one week to two weeks would not in any way affect educational programming for 2024, saying if anything, it was good for everyone – parents, learners and teachers.
