Calls grow against further postponement of school semester

AMMAN — As talk of further postponing the start of the second school semester continues to circulate, member of the board of trustees of the National Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) Ibrahim Bdoor warned against such a decision. 

Bdoor said another delay to the return of in-class education beyond February 20 would lead to an “outbreak of an educational pandemic,” as it will be the third time the semester has been postponed within a month.

“It is necessary to immediately resume education regardless of the epidemiological situation, given the serious impact postponing will have on the educational system. Postponing will add approximately six weeks to the semester to compensate, meaning that the semester would continue during summer vacation,” Bdoor told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

He said that unlike other sectors, the education sector is always the first to close amid the uncertainty of the pandemic, which is “unfair”.

All sectors are still open and functioning at full capacity while the educational sector has been facing “vacillating decisions” since the beginning of the pandemic, he added.

Bdoor emphasised the need to “coexist with the current health reality” and to return fully to in-class education, as distance education in the past two years was “unsuccessful for many reasons”.

He also encouraged students to get fully vaccinated, “which is the only way to immensely reduce the spread of the virus”.

Reem Dasouqi, a mother of three middle and high school students, said that the constantly changing decisions of postponement have been “stressful” for her family.

“We are constantly unsure of what will happen, which is causing stress and anxiety to all of my kids as they do not know what to do, and they also do not want to go back to distance education,” she told The Jordan Times.

Dasouqi noted that “her children’s experience in distance education was not good, as their academic levels declined, which is why they are very much against going back to online education”.

She added that, along with the social and psychological impact of distance education, distance education has been “very exhausting and draining for the students”. 

Maha Bisher, a high school teacher in Amman, noted that postponing the semester further will be “an incorrect decision and will have a great, negative impact on teachers, students, and even parents”.

“The more the semester is delayed, the more accumulation of subjects and pressure there will be on everyone. This will not prevent people from getting infected, as they still go out and socialise either way,” Bisher told The Jordan Times over the phone.

“We should not keep allowing the pandemic to disrupt our lives,” Bisher added.