Risk of sending children back to school too high
On Sunday, basic education minister Angie Motshekga announced that most schools around the country are ready to reopen this week.
Matriculants and Grade 7s will be the first groups to return, while other grades will return later in June.
Teachers’ unions and three major governing body associations released a joint statement supporting the call to reopen schools this week, with an understanding that only those schools that are Covid19 compliant would reopen.
While I understand that this move is necessary if we are to rescue the academic year, I am very sceptical about permitting my 17-year-old brother to return to school.
My brother is a healthy teenager — a sports enthusiast who has no underlying medical conditions and who was last in hospital when he was being brought into the world.
He has never been ill, not even with the common cold.
In addition to this, he is in a relatively resourced former model C school in the heart of Johannesburg, in a province that is perhaps readier than all others to reopen schools.
And so, there is no doubt in my mind that even if he were to contract Covid-19, his chances of recovery are almost guaranteed. However, I am concerned. My brother lives in Soweto
— the biggest township in SA.
According to the latest provincial health data, Soweto is one of the hotspots in the Johannesburg region — a region with the highest number of active cases in the Gauteng province.
Just last Wednesday, data showed that Gauteng recorded its highest daily increase of new infections since the virus arrived in SA in March.
On that day, 291 people were confirmed to have been infected.
A day later, 272 more people were infected — the second highest increase since March.
Over the past few days, the province has been recording worryingly high rates of active cases.
My brother lives in Soweto with my grandmother — a septuagenarian with underlying medical conditions including chronic peptic ulcers that have often rendered her immobile. In addition to my grandmother, there are three young children — my nephew, and nieces — aged between two and eight, who also live with my grandmother.
So, while my brother may contract the virus and recover, he lives with people who may not.
The discourse around the reopening of schools is often centred on the preparedness of schools to ensure safe distancing and to provide adequate water and sanitation.
And while this is certainly critical, of equal importance is the question of whether the government is doing enough to ensure that communities where children come from are Covid-19 compliant.
These children do not come from a parallel universe, they come from the very communities where infection rates are exponentially increasing and where the curve is far from being flattened.
So, merely creating a conducive environment on a school premises does not at all guarantee that infections will be curbed.
I understand fully the importance of reopening schools.
The consequences of losing this academic year could be potentially devastating to the South African economy and to the very futures of these pupils.
Losing the academic year has a ripple effect that goes beyond basic education, and so government must necessarily do a balancing act.
Knowing this does not negate the concerns that I and many other parents and guardians have.
We want our children back at school, but we also want our families alive.
The question for me is: What price are our families prepared to pay for our children returning to school?
It is a question that demands greater reflection than we have given it.