Cholera outbreak forces govt in Zambia to extend school holiday with three weeks

FOLLOWING the outbreak of cholera, government has announced that all schools will remain closed for three weeks.

Minister of Education Douglas Syakalima made the announcement this morning stating that the decision follows a meeting by a National Disaster Management and Mitigation Council of Ministers.

He said all public, private, aided and community learning institutions such as early childhood education centres, primary and secondary schools will remain closed for a further three weeks after the official opening date of January 8.

“This means that schools will only open on Monday, 29th January, 2024. Further, the grace period which was earlier given to grades eight and 10 learners has now been overtaken and all learners are expected to open on 29th January, 2024,” he said.

Mr Syakalima said in order to catch up on the time lost, the first term holidays will only run for one week instead of four weeks, which implies that schools will close for term one on 26th April instead of 5th April, 2024, and open for term two as scheduled on May 6 2024.

The Minister advised parents and guardians to ensure that they prepare their children for term two even before term one closes, in view of the short holiday time.

He further said during the prolonged closure, all learning institutions should be thoroughly cleaned up, have clean water and sanitation facilities, adequate hand washing points, detergents and disinfectants in addition to the provisions of the preventive guidelines already in schools.

“Learning institutions should maintain a high level of hygiene at both personal and institutional levels as guided by the ministry of health. In addition to the above, school inspections and sensitizations will be intensified at all levels in order to ensure compliance to the above guidelines,” Mr Syakalima said.

He said in order to keep the learners busy during this extended closure, parents and guardians are encouraged to allow their children to make use of the available alternative modes of learning provided by the ministry, such as Zambia national broadcasting cooperation (ZNBC) Television on Edu TV channel, Internet based platform on learning passport and notes master.