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Schooling could resume in May: Mweli

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Basic Education Department Director-General, Mathanzima Mweli says schooling could resume on May 6, depending on the decision of Education Minister, Angie Motshekga.

Motshekga is expected to provide the exact date and details on the resumption of the 2020 academic year, at a media briefing on Thursday morning.

Teacher unions have voiced concerns over the provision of water and sanitation facilities, personal protective equipment for staff and the ability of learners to practice physical distancing in crowded classrooms.

Speaking during a joint virtual Parliamentary Committee meeting on the future of the 2020 academic year, Mweli says the winter vacation will be shortened to a week.

He says, “The school calendar for 2020 will be adjusted to have schools open on May 4, 2020 for teachers and May 6 for learners. The grades will be phased-in starting with Grade 7 and 12. The lost school days will be recovered by shortening the June holidays to five days and the September holidays to a long weekend in order to make up these days. The fourth term will also be lengthened to close on 9 December for learners and 11 December for teachers.”

Stringent requirements

The Department says all public schools will be required to adhere to stringent requirements in line with the COVID-19 lockdown regulations, once the schools resume.

Mweli has emphasised that all the schools that do not meet the set guidelines by the department will not be allowed to reopen. He says part of the reasons not to comprise the safety of the children during this time is to avoid any possible civil cases against the department for negligence.

“We will have to prove that indeed schools are safe. And I must say that any schools that do not meet the requirements…we will be ticking boxes of the requirements and the school governing bodies and the school management team will be part of that, such schools will not be allowed to form part of the schools that will be reopening.”

Education committee holds a briefing on Wednesday on the status of schooling during COVID-19 lockdown: 

Below is the presentation:


‘Reopening schools will exacerbate inequalities’

Earlier this month, Professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University, Jonathan Jansen said reopening the school will reveal inequalities in the society and exacerbate them.

Jansen advised that the 2020 academic year be called off due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. He further suggested that schools promote Grade 1 to Grade 11 learners to the next grades, but have a catch-up plan in place.

“One of the consequences of reopening schools is that you will see the inequalities that already exist and they will be exacerbated because while we were away. The 20% of schools in our estimation have continued to have online learning because they have the bandwidth, because they have laptops at home, because they have schools with Google platform facilities and all those kind of things.”

Jansen argued that “For 80% of our kids there are no such facilities available and so to simply reopen as normal is to almost ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is just wrong. I don’t think we should try to cram everything we’ve lost until the end of the school year. It will make a bad situation worse,” .

 In the video below, Professor Jonathan Jansen elaborates his views:

PORTFOLIO SELECT COMMITTEES COVID 19 BASIC EDUCATION SECTOR PLAN (2) (2) (2) (Text)


‘Reopening schools will exacerbate inequalities’


Distinguished Professor in the Department of Education Policy Studies at Stellenbosch University, Jonathan Jansen says reopening will reveal inequalities in our society and exacerbate them.


Professor Jansen, on Wednesday, advised that the 2020 academic year be called off due to the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. He further suggested that schools promote Grade 1 to Grade 11 learners to the next grades, but have a catch-up plan in place.


Jansen says, “One of the consequences of reopening schools is that you will see the inequalities that already exist and they will be exacerbated because while we were away, the 20% of schools in our estimation have continued to have online learning because they have the bandwidth because they have laptops at home because they have schools with Google platform facilities and all those kind of things.”


“But for 80% of our kids there are no such facilities available and so to simply reopen as normal is to almost ensure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is just wrong. I don’t think we should try to cram everything we’ve lost until the end of the school year. It will make a bad situation worse,” Jansen adds.

 

In the video below, Professor Jonathan Jansen elaborates his views:

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