By Frank Mutagubya.
We are in the 10th month of Covid-19 presence in Uganda.
A number of measures have been instituted by the government through the Ministry of Health to ensure minimising the spread of Covid-19.
Among steps initially taken was the closure of schools and other institution of learning in the country.
A few months down the road, candidate classes and finalists in all learning institutions were allowed to resume learning while observing a set of guidelines to ensure the protection of both the learners and the teachers.
The learners have now come back home after completing the second term, for primary and secondary schools; and for tertiary, the finalists have completed their final year exams.
But there is an important aspect of the learning calendar for the tertiary students that the Ministry of Education seem not to have paid attention to while scheduling the resumption of schooling. This is the internship programme.
As we are aware, most, if not all, university students are required to undergo internship training where they are attached to companies and organisations to have hands-on exposure to real-life working experiences.
By the time Covid-19 spread to Uganda, a number of students had either obtained placements or were in the process of obtaining places where to have their internship.
As it were, most organisations out of the few that provide an opportunity for students to do an internship, are currently operating at less than 100 per cent capacity.
In this regard, the organisations have just a skeleton staff on board at any one time for purposes of de-congesting the workplace and ensure adequate social distancing.
What this means is that the number of staff on the ground at any one time may not be adequate for the available workload available, and at the same time provide the required supervision to the students.
Secondly, it would not make sense for an organisation to scale down on the staff on station while at the same time allowing students to come for learning purposes.
