The quality of education is being compromised, says the National Teachers’ Union (Natu).
This comes after it emerged that the current rotation system where learners have been going to school once or twice a week has proven ineffective with some learners losing two weeks at a time in some schools.
The rotational-learning system was presented in Parliament by the Department of Basic Education on June 30, as a means to maintain social distancing at schools.
“Under this rotational option, schools would adopt a bi-weekly rotational system where 50% of total learners in the school would attend in one week based on their grade.
“The learners that did not attend school in the first week would then attend school in week 2,” said the department’s proposal.
Department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga confirmed that the department was looking into alternative ways for effective learning while incorporating social distancing in classrooms.
“The system where learners have been going to school once or twice a week has proven in some schools ineffective with some learners losing a lot of learning time.
“Teachers are frustrated over the new system as they try the best they can to keep all learners updated with their school work but report that the system is not effective as some learners do not get help at home,” said Mhlanga.
“The system needs urgent attention,” Natu president Allan Thompson said.
According to Thompson, teachers are not happy with the current arrangement of seeing learners once after two weeks of teaching.
“This is definitely compromising the curriculum coverage and is also compromising the quality of learners produced for the next grade. They need to prioritise infrastructure in our schools,” added Thompson.