Schools open – for some

Grade 7 and 12 pupils from small schools will be the first to return to their classrooms on 1 June, when the department of education’s revised academic calendar comes into effect.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga announced the plan for the phased reopening of schools during a media briefing last night, saying that good progress has been made in the preparations to ensure schooling can resume next month.

Motshekga said the National Coronavirus Command Council and Cabinet had approved the reopenings.

Schools will have to adhere to health and safety protocols that will be put in place, she said.

They will also make an allowance for pupils and teachers currently in other provinces to return to their residences prior to the reopening.

Motshekga said psychologists and social workers would be roped in to support schools, while also ensuring children with special needs will be catered for.

Special schools, however, will not yet reopen, and plans for pupils at these schools will be announced at a later date.

“We are mindful of the needs of pupils with disabilities. The DBE is working with provinces to ensure that special schools are adequately provided for in all the plans we have put together,” she said.

“Our planning and procurement has considered the needs of pupils with disabilities and those in special schools. Provinces have put in place plans that will ensure that no child is compromised.”

Motshekga recognised that the coronavirus had “brought a lot of trauma and anxiety to all of us. It has turned our lives upside down and there is a lot of fear about what will happen next”.

Schooling could not, however, be stopped indefinitely.

She said the department had relied heavily on expert medical advice under the leadership of the department of health, especially regarding the “whole debate on the impact of Covid-19 on children and adults, and we are following those debates and use them to guide us”.

They also took guidance from international organisations like The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which warned that extended absence from schools put some children at risk of other health issues, as well as social issues such as teenage pregnancy and malnutrition, due to a lack of feeding programmes.

To battle the latter, school feeding schemes are also set to resume.

“The school nutrition budget will be utilised according to the revised school calendar and, where feasible, school meals will also be extended to catch-up programmes for the Grade 12s.”

Motshekga said the coronavirus had forced them to “re-engineer the basic education system”, prompting several measures to help recover some lost class time.