Pupils stay away in droves thanks to parents’‘anxiety’
Thousands of grade 3, 6 and 11 pupils in the Eastern Cape who have been at home since the lockdown began, did not arrive for the first day of school yesterday.
Their absence comes in the wake of a report presented by the Eastern Cape education department to the provincial legislature last week outlining the readiness of schools to receive the new grades.
The report confirmed that 337 of the 5,253 schools would not reopen because of infrastructure, water and sanitation problems.
Attendance figures for grades 3, 6 and 11, compiled by branches belonging to the National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of SA (Naptosa) revealed that no grade 3 or 6 pupils arrived at Bantini Primary in Ngqeleni or Ngqwangi Primary in Libode.
There are more than 256,000 pupils in these three grades.
Poor attendance was recorded at several other schools as well. None of the pupils at Ellen Olivier Primary in Middelburg in the Eastern Cape returned, as 14 of the 29 teachers are on comorbidity leave.
A total of 5,303 teachers in the province have been affected by comorbidities and the province needs 3,591 substitutes to take over their workload.
Naptosa’s Eastern Cape CEO, Loyiso Mbinda, said the poor pupil turnout indicated that parents were worried their children would contract Covid-19.
At least 190 pupils and 775 teachers have tested positive for the coronavirus while 18 people, including teachers, pupils and non-teaching staff, have died of Covid-19 related complications in the province.
The report said “the school situation is unstable as educators and learners are infected daily, making everybody feel anxious and parents reluctant to send their children to school”.
According to the report there was also a shortage of matric teachers, and teachers were teaching subjects they had not taught before.
“The shortage of subject advisers in critical subjects in some districts has delayed the mediation of critical documents to teachers.
“Monitoring and reporting has also been affected.”
Education experts, meanwhile, have weighed in on calls to scrap the academic year.
Prof Ursula Hoadley, from the school of education at the University of Cape Town, said these calls did not take into account “the cost to children in terms of learning, nutrition, health and social outcomes”.
She said: “Children should have access to the right to education if it is possible and safe.”