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Social media campaigners, parents and teachers alike have urged policymakers to shift school hours for pre-primary children in order to give them enough time to rest.

A social media debate ensued on Tuesday, March 9 with growing calls to start nursery school classes later in the morning.

The idea is to help the children to get sufficient sleep so they can thrive both physically and academically.

An official timetable that the Ministry of Education shared with The New Times, indicates that nursery schools are supposed to begin classes at 7:30 am through 11:40 am.

However, cases have emerged that schools request parents to prepare their children so that they can be transported at the same time as their colleagues in upper classes.

This, social media users, said leads to poor development of the children, leading to lack of interest in class sessions when students are sleepy and lazy.

Ange Uwase, a social media user said shifting the school hours back would create its own problems. But what is more worrying to her is that children have to wake very early in order to catch at 6:00 am.

"This is worrying for their health.”

Kelly Mutamba, a parent said that; "We need advocacy...”

Insufficient resources among the major causes

As a parent and a development specialist, Julian Ingabire Kayibanda says that one of the major problems is insufficient resources such as buses which have to be shared amongst schools.

Kayibanda backs the idea to shift school hours albeit highlighting that, "implementation can be a challenge for schools if you consider shared resources such as busses and difficulties managing shared schedules against the amount of work each school stage has to cover on a daily basis.”

Herbert Karera, a social media user noted that there is a need to invest in good nursery schools. That way, he says, children will not have to travel long distances in the morning.

"We need to invest more in good nursery schools. This often depends on the distance children have to cover from their homes to their respective schools.”

Enough sleep for the children is the best alternative

In an interview with The New Times, Evas Kyomugisha, Executive Director of Silver Bells, an international school based in Kimironko Sector, said that children in nursery schools need at least a 10-hour sleep in order to have a good day at school.

"Waking up a child at a tender before six is traumatizing. At least seven, but going to school at six is too much,” said Kyomuguisha, adding that; "But this entirely depends on the time they slept.”

According to her, if a child can sleep for 10 hours in the night, waking up early in the morning doesn’t affect them.

"It doesn’t affect their memory at all. In fact, their memory is strongest in the morning. Kids are early birds, even in the weekends they tend to wake up early. If they can sleep ten hours, they are good to go.” She said.

Kyomugisha highlighted that at Silver Bells, children start classes at 8:00 am up to noon.

"I wouldn’t go with the idea of extending class hours later in the morning, but rather the best thing to do is to ensure that children sleep early enough.”

Ministry speaks out

Speaking to The New Times, Marie Thérèse Uwizeyeyezu, nursery school specialist at the Ministry of Education says the issue is because schools don’t have the transport means to pick their children at the right time.

"This can only be addressed if the government dedicates specific transport means for these students. And this will need strategic planning, because I have personally submitted a proposal.”

Commenting on the impact it has on children, Mutuyeyezu said that, "The morning sleep is the most therapeutic, and what we do as society, we wake them up in the middle of that healthy sleep and send them to school when they are sleep deprived.”

She added, "Once children are stressed to wake up early in the morning, they look at school as a strange place, they are demotivated and in the end, they grow up hating school.”

This is something we are going to look at, especially in line with all the concerns that have been raised, she reiterated.