Kano children driving parents bananas as schools remain close

The extended closure of schools over the COVID-19 pandemic has seen many parents struggling to cope as their bored children pressure them over resumption.

Our correspondent in Kano captures the tension between parents and their children during this period.

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“Mummy, when is school reopening?”

For the umpteenth time since the COVID-19 lockdown forced schools to close, eight-year-old Ahmad Ibrahim asked his mother.

Hajiya Maryam Baba told Daily Trust that she always had to come up with a fresh answer to her son’s numerous questions about school resumption.

“Whenever he asks me such questions and I tell him I don’t know, he would get upset so I decided to dodge him or to answer with ‘when COVID-19 is over’ or something similar,” she said.

With Ahmad increasingly dissatisfied with his mother’s answers, whenever he asked her the same question, she would call his class teacher on the phone to explain the situation to him.

Maryam’s children are so keen about school that when rumours spread last month about possible resumption, they got very excited.

“They became so excited that one of them even took his school uniform for laundry.

“Unfortunately, the news turned out to be false,” she said.

Closure of Schools

It’s about four months since the federal government ordered the closure of schools to contain the spread of COVID-19. This measure has forced students to remain at home with their parents.

Although the government on June 29 announced the impending reopening of schools for graduating students, the majority of students are still holed up at home and would not let their parents rest.

Many still can’t understand why they can’t go back to school.

This has been driving parents crazy.

Sharing her experience, mother of three, Dr Ruqayyah Yusuf, said it has been amazing the way her children have been looking forward to going back to school.

“My children talk about school often,” she said. “They talk about their friends, their plays, their teachers and all.

“They are so tired of the lockdown and the unending story of COVID-19. In fact, they are tired of the house, even their toys.”

Her eldest son is nine and keeps asking when and how the pandemic will end.

“My small boy who usually cries and makes all sorts of troubles before going to school also mentions his school often and if I ask if he wants to go back to school, his response is always affirmative,” she said.

Parents Experience

Now the children pass their time singing their school anthem and rhymes and mimic their class sessions down to the way the teachers conduct the classes and the types of plays they engage in with their school friends.

Another parent, Malama Umma Garba, told our reporter that the forced holiday occasioned by the stay at home order has become boring to her children.

“I can remember when the school was closed, in the beginning, my children were happy about the development.

“You know at times children don’t like school.

“They always find one excuse or another for them not to attend.

“But immediately after Ramadan and the Eid-el-Fitr celebrations, they became worried and started disturbing us about going back to school,” she said.

Kabiru Usaini, on his part, said that his children now force him to take them to their classmates’ houses on a weekly basis so they could stay and play with them.

“The children are missing their school so much. They always talk about their friends.

“They now force me to take them to their friends’ houses for visits.

“And their friends too come often to the house.

“They are really happy with this development,” he said.

Another parent, Fatima Muhammad, said the lockdown has made her take her children along wherever she is going.

“When schools were in session, I used their school hours to go to the market or attend social gatherings alone.

“Now that they are always at home, I no longer have that freedom. I must go out with at least one of them.

“They are really tired of staying at home all the time, they always find ways to go out,” she said.

E-learning through radio, TV to the rescue

Kano, for instance, is one of the states to have introduced e-learning through radio and TV programmes for students to mitigate the effect of school closure occasioned by the pandemic.

The programme was initiated to motivate and educate the pupils to achieve academic excellence in spite of being at home for so long.

During the programme flag-off, the State Commissioner for Education, Muhamamd Sanusi Saidu, said that such programmes would educate the students and keep them prepared for their examinations.

“Instead of them staying at home without reading, we decided to commence such programmes to serve as revision for them,” he said.

However, findings by Daily Trust showed that the e-learning programme may not be achieving its set goals for many reasons.

Mujaheed Hafeez is an SS 1 student who said that he is not even aware of the e-learning programmes.

“We don’t listen to the radio in our house. So I am hearing of this for the first time,” he said.

Sadiya Aminu, a primary school pupil, told our reporter that the radio programme “is not interesting because the programmes are mostly aired in the English Language.

“So, I don’t understand the programmes very well.”

A parent, Fiddausi Abdulqadir, said that even though she was aware of the programme, she lost interest because they are not done the way “it is supposed to be.”

“At the beginning, when the programme was introduced, I was so happy for my children [because] at least they would be engaged in something.

“And above all, the programmes would avail our children the opportunity to learn at home, but when the programmes commenced on air, I found out the lessons do not go well with the students’ syllabus,” she said.

It is, however, not all gloom for the e-learning programme, as Amina Aminu, an SS 2 student, said, “Since the time the e-learning programmes were introduced, I have never missed any episode.

“I know the time when the programmes are aired in almost four radio stations in the state.

“And I learn a lot from them. I must thank the government for that effort.”

Eagerness for Schools to Reopen

Daily Trust findings showed that both the parents and their children are now eagerly looking forward to seeing the time when schools would reopen fully.

“Our fear is that if schools remain close, it means our children would lose the whole academic year.

“So we are hoping for resumption as soon as possible so that our children can proceed and move to the next classes,” said one of the parents.

For now, plans are being made for final year students to resume and complete their studies.

For the others, they still have a while to bug their parents some more.