After months of closures and distance learning, schools are finally reopening across the Kingdom and welcoming students back to their classrooms.

Monday morning, Roya News English visited a private school in Jabal Amman to speak to students and staff members on the first day back to school.

Senator and Superintendent Haifa Najjar expressed her joy on the first day of schools reopening and said “Jordan deserves our commitment. To continue celebrating the comeback of our students, we need to be very careful. We need to balance between education and health.”

Najjar stressed that if educationalists go back to their old ways before the pandemic, that would be a huge step backwards. She said “now there is a huge opportunity for all of us to rethink, reflect, unlearn, invite new paradigms and be courageous.”

She also pointed out that teachers should be given priority to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Teachers need to be protected and schools should abide by health protocols in light of the coronavirus crisis.

Literature, Performance and Theory of Knowledge teacher Khalida Qattash pointed out that she does not like to call it ‘distance education’ but rather ‘online learning,’ because “One of the main purposes of education is to socially engage. So, we’re physically distanced but we are learning online.”

Qattash said that she gave COVID-19 a name which is ‘the Equalizer’ because “it threw everyone on the learning ground.” She continued saying “Everybody became a learner in this period and there was so much to learn.”

She pointed out that “The trade off of students being healthy at their homes, while at the same time still learning and engaging with their teachers is something that we cannot consider negative.”

While some students expressed their preference of attending some classes online, Qattash said that going to schools for hands-on learning is necessary.

PYP English Language Teacher Nadin Shahatit said the online education was hard at first by children proved to be quick learners and could “mute, unmute and interact with teachers independently and without issues, by the beginning of the second term.

Two 12th graders expressed their excitement to be back at school, saying that while they appreciate their teachers' great efforts throughout the pandemic, reopening schools is important.

Schools across the Kingdom started gradually reopening Feb. 7 with only Kindergarten children and first graders and Tawjihi students returning on the first day.

A total of 178,840 students in the second grade returned to schools Monday in various public and private schools across Jordan.

Two days ago, Her Majesty Queen Rania said that COVID-19 has caused the ‘The greatest disruption to education in human history’.