Many prefer online education amid pandemic despite govt reluctance

Many prefer online education amid pandemic despite govt reluctance

By Ahmad Jabr and Ben Garcia

KUWAIT: The issue of education in Kuwait amid the COVID-19 pandemic was back in the forefront yesterday when MPs charged during a National Assembly session that closing schools or a return to online education should never be in consideration. “The pandemic must not be used as an excuse to stop education,” MP Mubarak Al-Hajraf said during the session, adding that closing schools should be considered a thing of the past.

In the meantime, MP Dr Hamad Al-Matar demanded a clear response from the health ministry on the situation in schools, saying that the health and future of 650,000 students is at stake. “We don’t want to go back to online education,” he stressed. Public, private and foreign schools reopened this academic year after more than a year of closure due to the pandemic, during which schools resorted to online education.

The ministry set the maximum capacity for any classroom at 20 students, and students must sit two meters apart. For schools with more than 20 students per class, the class is divided into two groups: The first group goes to school on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday while the second group goes on Monday and Wednesday. In the