TEACHERS’ unions and parent associations are confident that schools are ready for full time attendance of pupils in schools after two years of rotational time table.
This comes after the Cabinet announced the approval of a number of adjustments with immediate effect to the country’s alert level 1 Covid-19 regulations based on the trajectory of the pandemic and the levels of vaccination last week Monday.
Some of the amendments included Covid-19 isolation guidelines, as well as the removal of the 1-metre social distancing measure in schools.
Yesterday, the head of education in the province, Dr Barney Mthembu, visited the eThekwini Primary School in Pinetown District on behalf of the MEC for Education Kwazi Mshengu, as schools across the province welcomed their full complement of pupils.
National Teachers’ Union secretary Cynthia Barnes said they were 100% (behind) approval of schools full-time return adding that the 2020/21 matric results were not a true reflection of education.
“I can even begin to think of primary schools pupils. The teachers would teach them today and tomorrow they (are) not coming to school the next day they had forgotten about everything they learnt. This was difficult for the teachers and the pupils.
“We are hopeful that the department of education will meet the schools’ needs by providing mobile classes where needed, deliver masks and sanitisers on time. In this way, inequality would be prevented,” said Barnes.
South African Democratic Teachers Union (Sadtu) provincial secretary Nomarashiya Caluza said there was a consultation meeting with unions last week where the department presented their long and short-term plans of attending to the issues of overcrowding.
“The expectation is that the department attends to the problem of overcrowding in classrooms as soon as possible,” she said.
Ben Machipi, Secretary of Professional Educators Union, said they were fully behind the call for the schools to return to normality, after a long time due to challenges that came with Covid-19.
“We are aware of the general outcry from many schools, as they are faced with overcrowding and shortage of furniture. We strongly appealed to the department to prioritise and urgently attend to the issue of infrastructure, more so it pre-dates the advent of Covid-19,” he said.
Vee Gani, the chairperson of the Parents Association, said this was a good move after pupils have been affected heavily for the past two years of the pandemic.
“These pupils were affected in their learning for the past two years. The pandemic, rotational timetable and the unrest affected them. This resulted in them not getting enough learning consistency. This full-time going to schools for them will be helpful for them to experience schooling in a full capacity. We are however worried that there would be an increase in the number of Covid-19 cases due to the fact that they won’t be in social distancing. We are hopeful that the teachers will minimise the risks by ensuring that the children wear their masks all the time and also sanitise,” said Gani.
Mthembu said the two main reasons of the visit were the excitement that all the pupils were finally returning to school and full capacity.
“This excitement comes from the frustration that we had where many losses also affected the learning of these pupils. They were lost out on so much. We are on the ground because we wanted to have a fill of how the learners were going back to school and see if everything was prepared for them,” he said.
He further stated that their monitors were on the ground monitoring different schools to check for any problems such as overcrowding which could challenge the decision.
