LISTEN TO THE CONCERNS OF THE PEOPLE

WHAT a year for people around the world. Who would have thought, starting in January 2020, that we would be finishing the year sanitising our hands and wearing masks to protect ourselves against a deadly virus. Yet, here we are in the midst of the second wave of a virus causing havoc.

One thing is clear to me – humans are very adaptable and have responded positively to the pandemic. In the field of education, most governments have reacted sensibly to the virus. They have worked with the people to find the best way in the interests of the communities they serve to protect learners. In South Africa, our government, too, has been very sympathetic to the needs of school communities.

The schools have worked extremely hard to give learners the opportunity to complete the year under the most trying conditions. When our schools were to reopen in June, the government delayed the opening to allay the fears of parents. President Cyril Ramaphosa, listening to organisations involved in education, closed schools for a further period in July/August.

In the Western Cape, the education department took action against a principal for advising parents to keep their children at home. The principal's disciplinary hearing is under way. I sincerely hope that the department uses the holiday recess to come to its senses and drop the charges against the principal.

The country’s matric learners must be commended for the manner in which they tenaciously wrote their final examinations. They, like all the other learners, were impacted heavily by the virus. They lost out on tuition time which can never be recovered. Psychologically, they had to adapt to the changing circumstances.

I salute these brave education warriors. Hats off to Sadtu and the other organisations who took the NDBE to court and had the decision for matric students to rewrite the Mathematics and Physical Sciences Paper 2s, overturned.

Once again an ill-conceived decision by the NDBE when it had not even completed its inquiry into the leaks.

I always felt that all grade R-11s should have been promoted automatically so as to give them the benefit of the doubt in 2021. This was not to be. Schools worth their political and educational salt should have promoted all the students from grades 1-11 to the next grade.

What is there to learn from this pandemic in education or in any education issue? Firstly, government, and especially the Education Department must always consult all the role-players in education.

It is an exhausting process, but it will always bear fruit.

I trust that our government will in future listen to the concerns of its people.