Western curriculum schools reopen despite swine flu fears

KUWAIT: Despite the heated debate about whether to start the school year according to the previously agreed schedule or to delay it until extensive measures have been taken to deal with the global H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic, students at some private schools in Kuwait returned to classes yesterday. Public schools are set to open shortly after Ramadan, while Kuwait's cabinet decided last week to delay the beginning of classes in nurseries and kindergartens until November.

In the meantime, a number of MPs are urging the Minister of Education Moudhi Al-Humoud to delay the start of the school year in all schools until it has been established that the ministries of education and health are ready to deal with a possible spread of swine flu pandemic that has caused five deaths in Kuwait to date, with the number of reported cases exceeding 1,400.

Faten Al-Theyb, an administrative supervisor in the French School of Kuwait, told the Kuwait Times that the school has taken all the necessary safety measures to prevent the spread of swine flu.

We've taken all the advised procedures to limit the spread of the virus as much as we can," she said. "We have doubled the numbers of the cleaners' shifts and we have installed hand sanitizers and sterilizing equipment in every classroom. In the morning, we had a team that went through all the classes and took the temperature of all the students, and we have a special room to isolate any suspicious case immediately." Al-Theyb added that student turnout on the first day back at school was almost complete,
but admitted that there were some absences due to swine flu fears.

Concerns over the virus seem like the last thing on anyone's mind when observing student in their classes yesterday. As the first school bells rang, each and every one of the students was engaged in an activity of some kind. Passersby in the corridors of the Kuwait English School looked active and busy, while teachers, parents and kids appeared anything but anxious.

Rhoda Mahmoud, Vice Chairman of the Kuwait English School, opposed any delay to the beginning of the school year. She told the Kuwait Times, "I think it wouldn't be right to delay the opening of schools. First of all if we will delay the beginning of the school year, until when we can do that? What will change in this period of time. Second, if we follow this pattern with closing schools then we should close everything. Life will then stop completely, and that can't be right.

Lastly, parents do still have the choice; if they don't want their children to go to school it's their own choice, but it's not fair to take away the right to go to school from those who choose to do so." Mahmoud emphasized, however, that the school has taken all the necessary measures to prevent any spread of the virus among students.

Parents certainly seemed satisfied with the measures taken by the school and approved of the timely start of the school year. Abdulrahman Al-Khabbaz, the father of eight-year-old student Muhammad, said, "I think the disease is not as dangerous as they claim in the media. I believe that here in the school they are also vigilant and careful about our kids. If you think about it, if our kids can catch the virus in school they can also catch it in the mall or on the playground or anywhere else; eventually ever
ything that is not meant to happen will not happen.

Other parents were dissatisfied with the school year starting during the high point of the swine flu pandemic. Muhammad Nasser, the father of seven-year-old Farah, said, "Of course we were worried about our daughter; it would've been better if the school year was delayed for two weeks or so since we were on a vacation, but we contacted the school and they said they were starting on time, so we depended on Allah and decided to send Farah to school.

The schools' own decisiveness seems to have helped many parents make up their minds in favor of the timely launch of classes. Amin Al-Mhanna, a father of three young students, said, "At the beginning of the debate about the swine flu, we were affected by the media. We thought it would be better not to send our kids to school, but then we thought what will delaying the school year give us? So we hoped for the best and decided to send them to school".