My thoughts are with all 26 000 primary and high school learners in government schools at this time.
Since April 2020, our learners have had a very disruptive time due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
I have observed that each school community is doing their own thing. There does not seem to be any co-ordination between school communities to look at government’s response and the schools’ responses to the pandemic.
I have heard parents at private schools and model C schools say quite joyfully that their children go to school every day.
The majority of schools of the poor, before the Covid-19 pandemic, were already struggling with poor living conditions, unemployment, long-waiting lines at hospitals, no parks in areas for children to play, mass housing projects where people live on top of one another and the list goes on.
I stay in Lansdowne, a stone’s throw away from Hanover Park, where I drive to every day to go and see hundreds of children playing in the streets where under normal conditions, they would be at school.
I follow scientific reports on the statistics of the virus and read that in South Africa there is a possibility of a third coronavirus wave and that the virus is mutating all the time.
I read that a well-known school in Claremont, known for its excellent education as well as the political education it had given its students in 90 years of its existence, has all its students at school.
More schools in poor areas are considering accepting more students back at school.
In the private sector, most of its workers are back at work. In government sectors, some people work from home and others are back at their institutions. We do know more about the coronavirus than we did in April 2020 – like we know more about Aids, Tuberculosis, and many life-threatening diseases.
We know if we contract the virus we must isolate for two weeks, inform those who we were in contact with and if we get worse we must be hospitalised.
I think what is sadly lacking is a debate in communities and especially among schools as to how best to tackle the issue about the return to school.
We also need to consider the social ills of students not being at school.
The parents who have to go to work and have no money to pay people to look after their children.
I often wonder what agony these parents must be going through at work. Yes, the experts on the disease can give us information, but we, in our communities, have the right to debate the issue of our children returning or not returning to school.
Governments all around the world can also use the coronavirus to stop debates on serious issues in communities.
Schools have also become so isolated because they say they are so busy sanitising students that they have no time for robust debate around the virus.
Have you seen any school advertising a talk about the virus in the media? On the contrary, it seems the less we talk about the virus the better. Schools should be places for debate.
A primary school, last week, sent a letter from the principal stating – to save the peace at school parents must not allow their children to talk about what is happening in Palestine now!
Be neutral and retain the status quo! The same could be said of the virus.
* Brian Isaacs obtained a BSc (UWC) in 1975, a Secondary Teacher’s Diploma in 1976, BEd (UWC) in 1981, and MEd (UWC) in 1992. He is a former matriculant, teacher and principal at South Peninsula High School.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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