Contact classes on hold amid a surge in COVID-19 cases

Amid another surge in COVID-19 cases in Rwanda, some universities have opted to halt contact classes and offer only online learning in an effort to curb the spread of the pandemic.

Following the increase in positive cases, the government banned inter-district movement from Wednesday 23 June. The restriction is one of several resolutions taken at an extraordinary cabinet meeting early this week.

Over 2,447 new positive cases and 15 deaths have been recorded in the past few days, according to figures from Rwanda’s Ministry of Health.

Following the revised measures to prevent the spread of the pandemic, which also saw the curfew change to 7pm to 4am, universities resolved to halt physical classes.

For instance, at the Mount Kenya University, Rwanda, there will be no physical classes for at least the next three months, according to Dr Edwin Odhuno, the vice-chancellor.

He said that, previously, the university opted for blended learning, but, due to the continued growth in the number of positive coronavirus cases in the country, the only option is to go online.

According to him, the university has recorded only a few cases of COVID-19, largely due to the measures taken at university level and which will still be adhered to in the next few weeks.

At Kepler in Kigali, courses will also be delivered online only, after the university recorded eight positive cases recently, according to Sylvia Uhirwa, the director of external relations.

“We recently had four students who tested positive for COVID-19, so we closed the campus and [through] contact tracing revealed [that] eight students [were] infected in total. With the recent figures skyrocketing, we are all working and teaching remotely [on the Kigali campus],” she said.

She said students on the Kiziba campus were still having physical classes, given that they had enough space and were easy to trace as they are all refugees and study from within the Kiziba camp.

Kepler partners with Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) to provide students in East Africa with access to United States-accredited bachelor degrees from SNHU.

Ban on campus meetings

University World News also learned that the African Leadership University has issued new guidelines for the next two weeks, including “a no-guest policy on campus”.

According to an internal circular by the university, apart from the normal health protocols to contain the virus, all social gatherings will be put on hold for the next two weeks, including contact sports and celebrations of any kind on campus.

The university decreed that those seeking to hold physical meetings on campus had to have mandatory negative COVID-19 test results in the 24 hours prior to the meeting.

Other universities and higher learning institutions say they have also taken steps to try to halt the spread of the virus.

The majority of universities which are yet to go online say they have opted for blended learning and encourage students to stay at home and learn from there, wherever they can.

Universities have, over the past months, pushed for online courses, but some students struggle as they lack computers, devices and data to access the internet.