CAPE TOWN -
Schools were forced to close its doors for a second time this year due to the spike in the Coronavirus infection rate, forcing the Department of Basic Education (DBE) to trim the curriculum nationally.
Education Minister Angie Motshekga visited Eletsa Secondary School and Tshepagalang Secondary School as Grade 12 learners returned to school.
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Motshekga said it would have been a catastrophe to cancel the academic year and instead, the department has trimmed the curriculum nationally and has developed a three-year plan to catch up.
“What we have done for the internal grades is to take parts of the curriculum of 2020 into 2021 so we are going to only teach and assess them on only 70 percent of the curriculum,” said Motshekga.
“We are not going to dump the work we missed, we are going to factor it into 2021.
“So it is going to be a three-year programme to see if we can claw back what we have lost. Every school is looking at its own situation with the curriculum, and what are some of the available resources.
“What remains for Grade 12 is that their paper has been set. They are writing a paper that has been set since two years ago. Because the cycle for the paper is 18 months.
“That is why we pushed the exam to December and we are not giving them a break to allow them to finish,” she said.
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