Schools to Offer Online or In-Person Learning

TDT | Manama

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Public and private school students in Bahrain will be able to choose between staying with online learning and returning to classrooms, as the Education Ministry moves to carry teaching and exams through to the end of the second term.

Education Minister Dr Mohammed bin Mubarak Juma said in an Instagram video on Sunday that all pupils in public schools, from Year 1 to Year 12, will be offered two choices from next Sunday: to keep learning online or to return to school in person. Private schools, meanwhile, will be free to decide their own teaching and exam plans.

‘All students, without exception, will have two options,’ he said. ‘They may continue with remote learning or move to in-person learning.’

Public schools will spend this week contacting parents and pupils to find out which option they want for the next stage. Mr Juma said the same room for choice would apply to tests. Students who return to school will be able to sit exams on campus or through remote learning. At school, they may take exams online using school devices or sit them on paper in the classroom. In special cases, exams may also be taken at home, as happened during the first evaluation period.

‘There will be flexibility here as well,’ he said.

For students who return in person, school transport will restart, canteens will reopen and activities inside and outside class will carry on as usual. Those who stay online will continue under the same approach used in recent weeks, with teaching centred on the core parts of the curriculum and the main subjects.

Mr Juma said private schools would be free to decide if they want to keep remote learning or return to classroom teaching. They will also choose the date of any return and decide how assessments are carried out.

‘These two options will provide the flexibility needed to deal with different circumstances while keeping the learning process going until the end of the second term,’ he said.

He added that higher education institutions would receive separate instructions through an official statement, which would also make clear that there would be flexibility in attendance and in the ways students are evaluated.

Mr Juma also said the ministry expects the academic year to end with graduation ceremonies open to any institution that wants to hold them, including public schools, private schools and early education institutions, especially kindergartens.

The announcement follows earlier steps already taken by the ministry. Early education institutions were allowed to reopen after strong demand from parents, while public and private schools serving students with special needs were also allowed to reopen because of the close behavioural and academic follow-up those students need.

Mr Juma said remote evaluation had already been used in public schools to record part of the second-term marks and that the process had gone smoothly.

‘The Ministry of Education studied all available options so they could be offered to parents and students, taking into account the exceptional circumstances and the need to keep education going,’ he said.